


A Fighter, a Ranger, and a Cleric Walk Into a Tavern

by amoosebouche



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alcohol as a Coping Mechanism, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Angst and Humor, Anxiety, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Fantasy, Dark Magic, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2016, Depression, Dissociation, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Necromancy, No Smut, Role-Playing Game, Sam Has a Dog, Sam Ships It, Self-Destructive Behavior, Swords & Sorcery, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, but the author couldn't come up with anything better, slowest of slow burns, the author has taken many liberties with Pathfinder, this was the working title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 13:31:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 87,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8374003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amoosebouche/pseuds/amoosebouche
Summary: Dean and Sam have been hunting evil on their own ever since... well, let's just say it's been a while. The two of them have always been enough for whatever horrors they come up against, until they stumble ass-first into the midst of a pretty fucked up necromancer situation that tests every bond they hold dear. Along the way, Dean sees the potential for a powerful new ally in the mysterious man he and Sam rescue, but he doesn’t think he can trust someone whose greatest value is in the magic at his disposal—because magic can harm more readily than it can heal. As if that wasn’t enough, the circumstances of his mother's death comes back to haunt Dean just when he needs to be at the top of his game.





	1. Gimme Shelter

**Author's Note:**

> I'd be lying if I said I ever seriously thought I'd finish this. It is, officially, the only chaptered story I've ever finished, so, phew! If it hadn't been for a firm deadline, I may have abandoned it months ago, so yay for DCBB kicking my butt. Even though I could have easily spent another couple of months revising the damn thing...
> 
> I took advantage of a lot of people while working on this. [jdragon122](http://jdragon122.tumblr.com/) created some lovely art which you can like/reblog [here on tumblr](http://jdragon122.tumblr.com/post/152267444130/dcbb-2016-a-fighter-a-ranger-and-a-cleric-walk) or see in high-res on [deviantArt](http://jdragon122.deviantart.com/gallery/60726124/DCBB), so please check it out! Thank you to [darcydelaney](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DarcyDelaney) for stellar beta reading! Dimps, as always, thank you for your invaluable cheerleading & answering my many questions, and Fishie, for listening to me bitch while you had your own fic to work on. Jony, who promised she'd read this even though it isn't wincest, and Justin and Nathan for sitting down with me and mocking up character sheets and running some combat scenes. And to my former coworker who will never read this note: SORRY IT ISN'T CENTAUR PORN. (I'm not at all sorry.)
> 
> Note to gamers: you may notice that I've taken a massive amount of liberties with the Pathfinder game system. I made a lot of stuff up and did some other things completely wrong just for the sake of the story. Originally I had intended to strictly follow game rules, but it got too difficult to follow what I'd outlined, so all my good intentions went by the wayside.
> 
> Finally, seeing as I went the cheesy route and used song titles for my chapter titles, I made a [playlist](http://8tracks.com/amoosebouche/dark-fantasy)! It perfectly showcases my very odd taste in music.

_ Oh, a storm is threat'ning _

** **

** Prologue **

**Rob** : Following the lead from the last town, you come up to the graveyard. It's a clear night, dark despite the moonlight. The wind whispers through the trees, and dead grass rustles at your feet. A wrought-iron fence surrounds the cemetery, and the gate is open.

**Jared** : I roll perception.

**Rob** : Ok, let's see—Sam, you hear something ahead, but it's too dark and too far away to make out.

**Jared** : Uh, alright. Can my dog see or hear it?

**Rob** : Uh, no. Nope.

**Jared** : Fine. We investigate. I pull out my shotgun.

**Jensen** : Well, this is a bad idea.

**Rob** : So you're walking toward the sounds you heard?

**Jensen** : Do another perception check, your bonus is better.

**Jared** : Yeah, ok. Rolling.

**Rob** : Good, good. As Sam peers into the darkness, he sees shapes moving around the graves, just as they see him. You're being attacked by zombies! Roll for initiative!

**Jensen** : Shit, I didn't even get my weapon out. Uh, Dean’s gonna run. Yeah. In the opposite direction.

**Jared** : You dick!

**Jensen** : Shut it. I’m tired of rerolling Dean every time he dies.

 

* * *

 

The world is going to end bloody.

He recalls a book he’d hidden from Sam—for no particular reason other than that he’d gotten used to hiding intellectual pursuits from his younger brother—that proclaimed, with some measure of glee, that the Earth would eventually be smashed to bits by asteroids, or pummelled by electromagnetic waves, or possibly blown up by a nearby star going supernova. In the author’s opinion, it was less a matter of ‘if’ and more a matter of ‘when.’ Dean agrees—although it’s cute that the guy thinks the world would last long enough to end that way. In _his_ opinion, you’re much more likely to be ripped to shreds by some supernatural horror in a backwoods graveyard before you even hit thirty-five than be disintegrated by gamma rays. He’s not even being melodramatic, as Sam would claim, because at this particular moment, he’s living proof of his theory.

A small shed currently provides the only barrier between him and said supernatural horror. Dean’s heart thunders along, far too fast to be healthy, but these things—these fucking _things_ —are fast and vicious and relentless and they hone in on panic or some shit. Judging by his heart rate, he’s definitely panicking. So he drops his chin and squeezes his eyes shut and tries to remember that stupid yoga thing Sam taught him. He releases a slow and shaky breath, and then another, and although he doesn’t believe in this crap, the rush of blood in his ears fades from a thrumming roar to background noise.

While he stood there getting zen, one of the things had run toward the shed; its footsteps turn hesitant as it searches him out, and a ripe smell wafts over the short distance between them. He imagines the ruined head swinging back and forth and wishes he’d never gotten a good look at the damn things. Nightmares for life, that’s what he’s going to have if he survives this.

He _is_ going to survive this. 

He has to.

He absolutely, positively will _not_ bite it in some graveyard in rural Wisconsin.

And as soon as he figures out who’s responsible for this shit, he’s going to rip their lungs out. He lets out one more long breath and edges away from the corner of the shed, further away from the thing hunting him. _Let’s check out this cemetery, Dean; it’ll just be a quick stop, Dean; we’ll be in and out before you know it, Dean. Yeah, sure thing, Sammy._ They should have just found a bar. His foot bumps something solid and metallic, the resulting clank loud like a gunshot in the still night. His heart trips and falls and picks itself back up again before it sprints off into parts unknown—He waits for grabbing, plucking fingers and dull teeth and tearing, but seconds pass and nothing jumps out at him. He cracks one eye open and peeks downward.

Hallelujah?

His foot rests against a toolbox, and a heavy-looking crowbar lies on top, left out like a gift. Maybe he should reconsider that whole prayer thing, given that he just witnessed a miracle— 

Footsteps scuffle through dead grass. A wheezy grunt follows.

Right. Prayer can wait. Dean takes one last breath to steady himself—the undead are very unsettling, okay?—and blows it out sharply as he ducks around the corner. A good, solid swing of the crowbar catches the thing by surprise and the head bursts, an overripe melon left too long in the sun.

It seems a little anticlimactic, almost comedic— _Gallagher’s got nothing on this_ —but then the reality of the situation swamps him and his stomach heaves and a sharp, sour taste trickles up the back of his throat. He flings the slimy gunk off himself with jerky, uncontrolled swipes, and brain matter splatters to the ground with revoltingly wet noises. Slowly, haltingly, the panic fades and his hand stops trembling; he’s left only with his disgust. He _needs_ a shower beyond any rational understanding of the term. Maybe dousing himself in bleach will do the trick. Sam may give him shit about it, but cleanliness—

Shit. _Sam_.

“Sammy!”

He calls out too loudly and he probably just made himself a giant beacon for whatever is left out here with him, but instead of a thundering herd of zombies, his voice is swallowed up by gloom. Silence stretches on until he imagines he can hear the grass breathing, and he takes that to mean that there isn’t anything else alive (or not-alive, for that matter) out here. It’s an unwelcome realization because when he took off running, he’s certain that more than one of those things had followed. Which begs the question: where are the rest of them?

A dog’s bark cuts through the dead quiet, and it spurs him into a run. Low, rectangular headstones loom out of the dark, the faint moonlight barely enough illumination for him to keep his feet. He plows straight ahead anyway until he spots a beam of light against a headstone, and swerves toward it. He scoops the flashlight up on the run.

_Don’t be dead, you idiot._

Sam’s a good fighter and he’s got the dog and he’s _probably_ fine, but still...

He stumbles to a halt, narrowly avoiding the open pit at his feet. He swipes beaded sweat off of his brow and sucks in several deep, greedy breaths—too old and too out of shape—and swears, pulling his arm up to cover his nose and mouth too late. The reek of overturned earth and wet leaves mingles with the sharp bite of decay and the darkly acrid burn of something else. 

Well, this is definitely the spot where all hell broke loose. It could have been minutes ago, or hours ago; there’s a timelessness to the carnage and chaos. Unlike their usual cemetery gigs, the graves weren’t dug up all nice and neat. No, the corpses here had burst through coffins and crawled through dense earth to reach the surface. Putrescent, fleshy corpses that now lie motionless with broken-open skulls amid cracked skeletons of older bodies too stripped bare to have been raised as zombies.

The dog trots up to him, wagging his tail to show just how unconcerned he is, and—and he’s got a _femur_ in his mouth, the end dragging along the ground beside him. Gross. But if the dog is fine, then Sam has to be fine. Dean brushes his still-goopy hand over the bristly fur between the german shepherd's ears, but the dog senses the gesture for what it is and pulls away from the offending hand with his ears back flat against his skull. The dog—quite aware that Dean left something in his fur, and with one ear now comically bent to the side—shakes his head again and gives a soft warning growl that Dean ignores despite the little frisson of uncertainty it provokes; he scruffs his hand through the thick hair at the back of the dog’s neck, and the growl becomes a friendlier whine.

“Good boy, Bones. Where’s Sammy?”

A groan—a _human_ -sounding groan—comes from behind him. 

“Never mind, you useless mutt. I got ‘im.” 

 

The tangle of legs splayed out around the side of a tall, weathered gravestone is a welcome sight, if only because the man the legs belong to is squirming away from the corpse half draped over him, which means he's not hurt too bad. Dean can’t keep a straight face, but then again he was always the one to laugh at the most inappropriate times. Sam glares at him, apparently not feeling the same relief at finding his brother alive and unharmed.

Dean gets himself under control and extends a hand to Sam. “Glad to see you survived.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Sam says. He doesn’t sound particularly thankful; his face is pinched, and he brushes himself free of grass and other things with quick slaps. He flicks a hand through his long, tangled hair, and it quickly settles itself. The man’s a walking shampoo ad. “Shine that down here. So, you got any idea what that was all about?”

Dean holds the light steady while Sam rummages around. 

Like he has any idea what the hell happened. They’re more used to situations where someone’s weird uncle got loose from the funny farm and dug up Aunt Leanne, but that isn’t what this is. Not when it’s two towns in a row, not when it’s this many graves—and not to mention the whole ‘animated dead’ part; _that_ isn’t exactly typical. No, this is different than anything they’ve handled before. They got ambushed. It was very nearly a rout. It feels personal, but there’s no reason for it that he can figure. Although they’ve made a few enemies over the years, he and Sam aren’t well-known enough to attract any big wigs, the only sort capable of pulling something like this. They’ve stuck to the small fries ever since their team went from three to two. His best guess (and it’s a poor one) is that they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. He doesn’t believe in coincidences, so he keeps the thought to himself. 

“I dunno, man.” Dean rolls a shoulder—an aborted shrug because Sam isn’t looking at him—then lets his gaze sweep around the cemetery. “Hey, shouldn’t there be more bodies? Could’ve sworn there were more of those things.”

Sam goes _aha!_ and pulls his shotgun and a dingy backpack out of a patch of overgrown weeds. The dog pads over to him—with the femur still clutched in his jaws—and Sam kneels down to rub the dog’s head and ears and coos disgustingly at the animal. 

“Should we bring one or two of these with us? Some bones for Bones?” Dean asks, changing tacks. He kicks at a pile of bones, formerly an animated skeleton, which makes a very satisfying and almost musical clatter. Funny to think how not more than ten minutes ago, these things were dangerous. Now he’s thinking of making a set of rib wind chimes.

“Hah, hah. Very funny.” Sam peers closely at his hand. “Yech. You ready to get out of here? The dog needs a bath.”

“Couldn’t agree more. But… ” Dean stares out into the darkness and chews on his bottom lip. It seems pretty quiet now; a different quiet than the weighted heaviness of earlier. But something still feels off. He’s never been one to conflate the effects of adrenaline with enhanced perception, but what he’s sensing now is hard to ignore. He catches and holds Sam’s gaze. “I don’t like it. Someone worked some pretty heavy mojo to raise all these things. Whatever their plan was, I don’t think it included being interrupted by us and then just running off into the night. I think maybe someone or something is still here.” 

“Okay, but Dean—” Sam’s mouth flattens out into a thin line, a familiar expression that Dean will never admit is quintessentially Sam. “Maybe we should get some backup instead of just charging in again. I can give Bobby a call and see if any other hunters are in the area. We were kind of getting our asses kicked.” 

“Speak for yourself, _I_ was fine. Seriously, though, we’re losing time by arguing about this. Thought I saw a mausoleum back that way. I just want to check it out, and then we’ll get out of here, alright?” Dean says, then mutters, “Coming here was your idea in the first place.”

He points in the direction of the caretaker’s shed with the flashlight, but the dark shape he thought he saw while running is too distant to make out from here. It hadn’t been a large structure, and whatever was over there is probably long gone and he’s just picking up on residual stuff, but he’s nothing if not thorough, and it doesn’t feel right to leave without tying up at least one loose end.

“Oh, back that way? Where you ran and hid while I got piled on?” Sam says. 

There’s a ninety-eight percent chance Sam’s just giving Dean shit for laughing at him, but the two percent possibility of chastisement hits home. Anything could have happened while they were separated. Dean’s chest tightens. He never should have taken off like that. Never. Sam’s his responsibility, but more than that, he’s the only family Dean has left, and he will do everything in his power to keep it that way. But Sam despises Dean’s displays of filial devotion—or ‘babying him,’ as he calls it—so he will not make this a big fucking deal and open himself up for another argument. 

Instead, he croaks out a hoarse chuckle. “Shut up, Sam. At least I killed mine. Yours probably just keeled over from your gassy ass. Lay off the burritos, man.”

“Don’t be a dick. Where’s your stuff?” 

“Over here, I think.” 

They walk in the direction Dean points out; he sweeps the flashlight beam from side to side in front of them, the crowbar still gripped firmly in his other hand. The cemetery isn’t very large, but the gloom and eerie quiet somehow make it seem endless. The only noise is the crunch of dried grass and the squeak of a buckle here and there. And Sam breathing through his mouth, but Dean’s learned to tune that out over the years.

After a few minutes of feeling like he’s going in circles, he catches sight of a formless dark lump on the ground. He retrieves the army surplus duffle bag he’d ditched mid-flight with a little grunt of satisfaction, unable to contain his relief at how everything is coming back together. Ditching the bag made sense at the time (even if ditching Sam hadn’t) because the bag is heavy and bulky, but leaving himself without a weapon was stupid. No weapon, and split up from his partner. He’s damn lucky to be alive. He’s damn lucky _Sam’s_ alive, and resolves, again, to make sure it stays that way. The years they spent focused on small, easy hunts made them rusty and completely unprepared for something of this magnitude and it almost ended in disaster. _Could still_ end in disaster, depending on what awaits them in the building they have yet to clear.

“Shotgun or machete?” Dean says. He rifles through the bag as they move along, but everything seems to be in order: holy water, salt rounds, various guns, even more various knives.

“What are you going to do with a machete?”

“Didn't seem like a shotgun was working too well for you—”

“I was swarmed, Dean. And there were skeletons, and you know as well as I do that shotguns aren’t great against them.”

“—and beheading still works on zombies, smartass.” 

Sam snorts. “These things are fast, so good luck getting a head off in one swing before you’re overrun.”

“Alright, fine! Forget the machete. Well, uhh… I’ve got this trusty crowbar. Worked like a charm.” Dean brandishes the crowbar.

“Dean, there’s brains stuck on it,” Sam says.

“I know, right? And look what it did to—hey, where’d it go?” The caretaker’s shed is right in front of them, but the zombie he killed isn’t anywhere to be seen. Dean flicks the flashlight beam back and forth between the ground and the shed. This should be the right place. Sam gives him that look, the long-suffering one.

“Dude, I exploded that thing’s head. I mean, it’s all over me—” He crouches down to poke at a fleshy lump with the crowbar. “Oh, there’s the rest of it. Hah.”

“Do you _want_ me to throw up?”

“Sorry, Sammy. Forgot about your weak stomach.” Dean suppresses his own retch and puts his back to the ruin of the corpse. The strange sense he felt earlier is far more apparent now that he’s not preoccupied with staying alive. It pulls at him, soft and barely there, like a ghost passing by and raising the hairs on your arm. He shines the flashlight beam off to his left. It catches a few old gravestones and slides over tall, yellow grasses before it alights on a dim blob just a tad beyond its range.

“There you are,” Dean says, quietly and to himself.

 

The person who commissioned this mausoleum must have been compensating for something, what with the ostentatious columns and numerous carved details. They give it a vaguely Roman or Greek look, he’s not sure which. Ivy once covered the side; now withered and limply clinging to the wall, it can’t hide that the stone is cracked and discolored with age. A twisted and untended evergreen shrub stands like a sentinel near the corner to the right, and dead leaves and dry, unmowed grass skirt the base of the structure. Dead plants seems to be a theme in this place. A strange, unidentifiable smell hangs heavily in the air, stale but sweet, a throng of grandmas at a florist; the hair on the back of his neck stands on end, though he’s unsure why old lady perfume would be so alarming to his overburdened senses. Sam is still and tense at his side, and the dog gives an uneasy whine. Great; they all feel it, and it’s not just him being dramatic.

One of the worst parts of this fucking job is ignoring that little tingle that tells you to run away—only idiots and the suicidal run _toward_ the horrors that’ll eat you. What’s particularly disturbing about their current situation is that most of his senses are telling him to go forward, not away. Something in him _wants_ to go in that mausoleum. He doesn’t like the implications of what that means for his mental health. Or, you know, staying alive.

He doesn’t have time for this shit. He squares his shoulders and motions Sam toward the right, then strikes out toward the left, which turns out to be the back of the structure. There is one small window rather high off the ground, illuminated by a dim flicker of light that’s only just bright enough to show panels of stained glass. Doesn't look like it’ll open, and it’s too small to fit through, anyway, but that light… someone’s probably still in there. Someone, or something. His pulse picks up a fraction, and his skin prickles when sweat breaks out; the sudden moisture sends up a tangy scent from the rusted crowbar in his hand. All senses in overdrive, ears straining, he continues to edge around the building, neither seeing nor hearing anything out of place along the far side except more dead ivy. 

When Dean ducks around the last corner, Sam’s waiting for him on the other side. An iron fence extends between more columns, the gate ajar and waiting for them. A thin sliver of darkness is the only sign the heavy, patina-covered door isn’t fully latched, and he tries to calculate whether that means whoever or whatever is still inside or if they left in a hurry, but Sam waves him forward with an impatient gesture. Dean nudges the heavy door and it swings inward on well-maintained hinges. It’s so quiet in the cemetery that even the hushed slide of oiled parts seems too loud, though Dean’s perfectly willing to blame that on hypervigilance on his part. 

“Stay,” Sam says to Bones, and the dog sits obediently.

They slip inside. Dean takes the lead and Sam follows behind so closely that his breath huffs against the back of Dean’s neck in a way that he’ll never admit to finding comforting. God, he was stupid, letting himself be separated from Sam like that.

They’re greeted by the sight of something that Dean doesn’t quite understand. A (thankfully sealed) sarcophagus lies between them and a makeshift altar set up at the back of the room; the twenty or so candles that line that altar—black and red pillars of varying heights that seem to have been burning for some time—flicker madly with the rush of air that accompanies the brothers’ entrance. Wax has melted and dribbled down the columns and spilled out along the altar between the myriad piles of feathers and bundles of herbs and the platter that holds an animal skull to mingle with the blood and organs that litter the surface. Incense permeates the stale air, not the same scent as what he smelled outside as it's far too resinous, and there’s the metallic bite of blood underneath it, thick and visceral. It sticks in Dean’s throat and clogs up his airway and he swallows thickly to get around the obstruction; through the tinny buzzing in his ears, he barely hears Sam’s groan of disgust as his brother comes up alongside him. When he tears his eyes away from the altar, a shape on the floor catches his eye, that of a prone figure laid out but half hidden by the sarcophagus. 

“Sam.” Dean gestures at it and closes in on the body, though he relaxes quickly. It’s just an unconscious man, maybe a few years older than him, dressed in the ragged remains of a dress shirt and slacks, an old, beaten-up leather satchel resting in his unresponsive hands. His clothing is filthy, his face smudged with dirt, and his dark hair wildly disordered. He also happens to have several injuries. Dean automatically begins to asses the extent of those; he’s patched up Sammy and himself so many times he could do basic first aid with his eyes closed, and it would feel nice for something to go right at least once tonight.

There’s an obvious head wound at the man’s temple just below the hairline and a few bruises that could resemble handprints under the few days’ growth of scruff along his jaw. The man’s skin is cool and clammy, his pulse weak and thready, and the breath that puffs from between his chapped and cracked lips so faint it barely registers against the back of Dean’s hand. Several deep gashes criss-cross his exposed forearms. At some point these were half-heartedly bandaged, but the bandages are as dirty and as ragged as the man’s clothing and currently worse than useless. They need to go.

Dean moves the wrappings aside. Some of these cuts haven’t been tended to for days. The edges of the older injuries are just starting to knit back together, the skin raw and inflamed, while the newer gashes, more numerous than the older ones, look fresh. One’s not even an hour old, he’d guess. He’s not sure if the blood loss from all these wounds were what caused the man to lose consciousness, or if it was the knock to the head, or something else that did it. The situation’s not good, considering how close the guy is to death, but it could be worse. He could be _actually_ dead, and there’s nothing anyone can do about that.

What’s odd is that there’s no blood on the guy’s clothing, just grime, probably from being dragged around. The floor is free of blood, too. Was the guy brought here like this, in this condition? Tortured somewhere else and brought here to die… but that seems like a lot of effort with little payoff. Or—and he should have realized this immediately—there was a purpose to the torture. Perhaps it was part of a ritual that required large amounts of blood—like the kind of blood magic that goes hand-in-hand with necromancy. Makes sense, what with the massive amount of zombies and skeleton dudes and the evil altar of evilness.

Well. If the guy wakes up, he’ll ask him about it. 

“He’s alive. Sort of,” he says. Sam doesn’t reply, having drifted over toward the altar. His brother’s a sucker for magic, and sooner or later it’s gonna rear up and bite him in the ass. Dean roots around in his bag until he finds the first aid kit, and sets to work cleaning and redressing the man’s wounds. It’ll help a little, but the guy’s gonna need more than a few new bandages.

“Leave that altar alone for a sec and gimme a hand, would ya? We have any of those potions left? Better yet, you got any spells?” he says.

“You sure that’s a good idea? We have no idea who he is or why he’s here. He could be one of them,” Sam replies.

“C’mon, seriously? The guy’s obviously the victim here. Probably. And it’s a better idea than messing around with that thing.” Dean nods his head toward the altar, but doesn’t look up from his task. “Could be boobytrapped. ‘Sides, you even look at what’s on it?”

“It doesn’t look like a trap, it just looks evil. And yes, I _am_ looking at it, that’s why I came over.”

“Are you the trap master? No? Okay then. Get over here.”

Sam mutters that he’s the ‘magic master’ (he’ll really have to give Sam shit about that later, because the guy knows, like, five spells) but leaves the altar alone. He crouches down on the other side of the man opposite Dean. Face tight, he slings his backpack off and rummages through it for a moment before finding a stoppered vial of red liquid. He does not, however, give it to Dean. 

“How do you know it’ll even work?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Stab in the dark: zombies and necromancers and creepy black altars means it’s magic-related.”

“And if not, you’ve wasted a potion.”

“What, that the last one or something?” he asks Sam. He beckons for it. “C’mon, c’mon! Hand it over.”

“There’s only one left after that. We’ll have to take a detour to Bobby’s soon. _Real_ soon,” Sam says. “Are you sure this is the best choice? That this guy is…?”

“I’m pretty sure he didn’t sign up for this.”

“I’m going to need more than ‘pretty sure’.”

“Okay, I’m _really_ pretty sure. Look, I get it, Sam. We don’t know him from Adam. He could be bad news, could be involved with all this somehow. If he is, we’ll deal with it. But I don’t think he is, and right now, I need that potion. _He_ needs it,” Dean says. “Look, I’ll sprinkle some holy water on him. See?”

Holy water is fairly foolproof, so Sam capitulates, although he still doesn’t look happy about it. 

“You could just do your mojo thing instead,” Dean says. “I mean, you’d have to touch a strange man and use up a spell, but—”

“I had to do my ‘mojo thing’ when I was covered in zombies, so yeah, not happening.”

“Hah! You lost your mojo, eh? Eh?”

Sam does not laugh, and Dean sighs. He hadn’t asked how Sam managed not to get eaten, because a very large part of him never wants to think about that ever again. In fact, pretending that they never got separated and he never left his brother alone to die is high on his to-do list. But now that he _is_ thinking about it—shit. Sam had to use a healing spell on himself. Or on the zombies, since healing spells hurt them. Regardless, Sam was alone and defenseless and had to use his small pool of magic to protect himself.

So now Dean kinda feels like a jerk, and the realization of how close he came to losing Sam—his brother almost got _eaten by zombies_ , what the actual _fuck_ —looms up behind him and throws a damper on his denial party. _Stupid, stupid, stupid._

“Yeah, okay, whatever. I get it. Serious business from here on out. Lift him up a little bit, okay?” 

Sam gets the man slightly less horizontal and Dean grabs his head before it can loll off to the side. He works the man’s jaw open and as he pours the ruby liquid into his mouth, a drop trickles over the man’s pale lips and smears over Dean’s hand. It’s not much, and he’s not worried about the waste, not really, because right after the potion goes down, the chalky white pallor of the man’s skin lessens. This is completely normal, and not in the least alarming. It means it’s not too late and the potion is working, so all in all, it’s a good sign. 

But then something strange and rather much more alarming happens. The man’s hair, a lank, tangled mess of slightly greasy tresses, suddenly becomes all shiny and lustrous—lustrous not being a word that Dean uses lightly—to a degree that’s usually reserved for women in shampoo commercials (or Sam).

Shit gets _really_ fucking alarming when the man starts to glow.

Dean jerks back and lands flat on his ass while Sam stumbles and lets the body fall to the ground with a _thwump_. Vaguely, in the back of his mind, Dean’s aware of the empty potion vial spinning wildly across the stone tiles and of startled swearing from Sam, but he can’t tear his eyes away from the sight before him.

It’s like when you put a flashlight to your hand, but in this case, the man shines a bluish pale gold. Within a second or two, the glow’s completely faded away, but the memory of it lingers like afterburn from staring at the sun, with the shape of the man imprinted on Dean’s eyes fading slowly. 

“Did you see that? I’m not going nuts?” Dean says. He gets to his feet, still dazed.

Sam returns his wide-eyed look. “Healing potions don’t do that.”

They watch the man—or whatever the hell he is—for a moment or two longer, but he doesn’t glow again. Instead, his eyes snap open.


	2. Send Me An Angel

_Hear this voice from deep inside  
_ _It's the call of your heart_

Dean is halfway expecting to be met with golden eyes, but they are deep, radiant sapphire, a color that should not—scratch that, absolutely _does not_ —exist in normal humans. No way, no how. So that’s strike one against the stranger. You just never know what you’re going to get with non-human races: some are friendly, some aren’t. And apparently, some practically radiate magic, like whatever this guy is. At least he _looks_ human and doesn’t have anything weird like horns or wings or a tail. 

The man stares up at Dean, eyes getting wider by the second as all the color he just gained rushes away again. Although between Sam—still sprawled out on the floor—and Dean’s own pleasant demeanor, he’s got no idea why the guy is so terrified. The man makes an aborted attempt to sit up, and it occurs to Dean rather belatedly that he’s looming over the guy, and sure, that’s kind of rude, but he’s staring at Dean like he just kicked a puppy, which, hello: also rude. 

Dean moves forward; the man flinches away, but Dean’s reflexes are better and he grasps the man’s hand with a firm grip and hauls him up to a sitting position. Dean notes that his skin is dry and calloused, but that's all he really has time to take in before the guy jerks his hand away; as soon as he’s got his hand back to himself he scoots back until the sarcophagus stops his progress. His eyes flick between the brothers before finally targeting Dean—the closer threat, apparently. Well, how’s that for gratitude?

“Who are you? Why are you scowling at me?” the man asks. 

“I’m not scowling, you’re scowling!”

Sam throws his hands up in the air. “Don’t be such a child, Dean. I’m going to go check around outside and get Bones. Try not to kill each other, okay?”

The man’s frown deepens and he keep a cautious eye on Sam’s retreat (which only lends credence to Dean’s point, thank you very much). When Sam is out of sight, he raises a hand to his temple and his fingers trace over the mostly-healed cut. He peels away one of Dean’s bandages to assess his injuries, and carefully inspects each and every one. Dean looks on. Call it professional curiosity.

The potion worked well enough to heal the cuts, but faint white scars remain, as if they were years old. A few of the nastier, newer injuries have only just scabbed over, the skin reddened and taut around the scabs. Dean watches the man poke and prod at himself, and something nags at him.

_The healing potion_. He stares at the man’s arm, face going hot. He didn’t need to re-bandage the damn wounds if they were just going to heal the guy anyway. Brilliant work, Dean. He leans back against the mausoleum wall. _Stupid._

“You healed me?” the man asks. “Why would you do that? What do you want from me?”

“Relax, dude.” Dean drums his fingers on his leg. Surely it isn’t _that_ surprising. “We didn’t help you only to hurt you. We found you at Death’s door, so we gave you a healing potion. We just want some information about what happened here. How are you involved—” He pauses. That’s what Sam would call an _insensitive line of questioning, Dean_. “—Uh, what did they do to you? And what are you?”

Well, whatever. He tried. He’s pretty much the king of insensitivity.

“What do you—? I’m a ‘who,’ not a _‘what_.’ And…”

Dean prompts the man after too long a silence. “‘And…’? And what?”

No reply from the man is forthcoming. Dean takes a stab in the dark with one of his theories.

“Alright, so, what, whoever had you bled you, right? Did they need the blood for a ritual, or were you supposed to be a sacrifice? How many of them were there? Do you know what they were after?” 

No reply. 

“What the hell happened, man? And by the way, you ain’t human. Humans don’t glow.”

“Glow?" The man’s forehead crinkles up and his brows jog with the motion, but he quickly drops back into a frown. "Nonsense. You must be mistaken. I’m very clearly human. Something must be wrong with your potions.”

He’s lying. Dean doesn’t need a fancy spell or special abilities to know this: he saw the proof right in front of his own eyes. Hell, Sam saw it, too. The man is either lying or deliberately hiding things from them when all they want is to help—all they’ve _done_ is help _—_ and that’s strike two. Dean’s fist clenches with the effort of not lashing out—not that he’d really pop the guy. It’d be a waste of a healing potion. No, he’s not going to hit him. He just lets the pleasant fantasy run around in his thoughts for a moment or two. The man watches Dean’s fist clench and raises his brow, as if to say _See? And you wonder why I’m hesitant to be open with you?_ It gives Dean an idea. It’s not a nice idea, but there’s more than one way to get to the truth.

Dean pushes away from the wall and crowds the man against the sarcophagus. He stares into the stranger’s weird sapphire eyes, keeping them in focus even as the man tries to look away.

“Tell me you didn’t have anything to do with all the undead that attacked us, or things will get very unpleasant for you.”

Something shifts in the man’s demeanor. His eyes roam over Dean’s face, and it’s like he peers into the nooks and crannies of Dean’s soul. Dean holds still, tries not to blink or swallow or do anything else to distract the dude from whatever the hell this is, as long as it’ll get him talking. After what feels like an eternity, the man releases a pent-up breath and his face relaxes.

“It seems you aren’t one of them, and that this isn’t some sort of trick. In that case, I suppose I can tell you that I suspect I _did_ have something to do with this. Unwillingly, you understand! I’m a cleric—an exorcist, to be exact. I travel across the country to seek out and eradicate possessions and curses. I also accept the occasional contract; I was recently tasked with recovering a stolen unholy relic, and the trail led to a cult acquiring items meant for use in some very nasty necromancy rituals. I was closing in on them when I was ambushed and captured.”

The man speaks of his capture and subsequent torture calmly, with no more emotion than it’d take to recount laundry day. The only sign of vulnerability is how he twines his clasped hands together, gaze fixed where they rest in his lap, while he pauses to collect his thoughts. Dean sits on the cold stone floor and crosses his legs, and as soon as he’s settled the man continues.

“There are… certain rituals that require blood. Large quantities of blood. And my blood—well, never mind that. They used my blood—that is, they used _me_ —for their disgusting rituals. They kept me bound and gagged so I couldn’t perform any spells or escape, and it must have been pure luck that the man unbound me for the last bloodletting session. He seemed to take particular joy in drawing blood in the most painful way possible, and since I was so far gone at that point, perhaps he thought I wouldn’t be able to retaliate. I was not privy to their plans, but I think they were going to try and turn me once they had what they needed.”

“Turn you?”

“And that must be when you became involved. I managed to cast a warding spell while they were distracted by whatever was happening outside—that would be you and your partner, yes?—and they left. The next thing I remember is you standing over me with that thunderous expression. I thought you were one of them, come back to clean up.”

“I know I make bad first impressions, but c’mon, I wasn’t _that_ angry—”

“You were glowering and you’re covered in gore. What was I supposed to think?” 

“Oh. Yeah. Zombies.” Dean plucks at his ruined flannel shirt. “Anyway, so tell me, why’d you go with a warding spell instead of healing yourself and escaping?” 

“Because death is far preferable to what I fear they had in mind. Even if I’d managed to heal myself, I may not have been able to escape and they would just pick up where they left off, thus prolonging my torture. It seemed prudent to ensure they could no longer touch me, even if it meant I had to die. So I thought at the time, at least.”

Something squirmy settles in Dean’s chest and wiggles around between his ribs. He doesn’t know a lot about magic, and fuck-all about necromancy—by design, of course—but the concept of being _turned_ suddenly makes all too much sense. Eternal life as a mindless, rotting monster? No, thanks. Hard pass. Few things would be worse than becoming one of those creatures, roaming around, killing at the command of some evil asshole. He has a hard enough time staying in control of his life as it is. So he thinks he gets it, the man’s choice to die. Doesn’t mean he has to _like_ it.

But that’s a weird thought to have. Why does he care that much about a perfect stranger’s well-being? It’s one thing to help someone who’s right in front of you when it doesn’t cost you anything, because what’s one healing potion weighed against someone’s life? But it’s another thing entirely to be angry about a perfect stranger’s willingness to die well after the choice has been made and well before you ever met them.

Dean accidentally looks into the man’s eyes and they lock gazes for several too long moments; the man doesn’t flinch away this time, but his eyes are wide and kind of wet and—Christ, is he gonna cry? Dean rolls his eyes and his gaze slides away. Whatever the weird moment was, it ends quickly.

Yet… he can’t shake the feeling of connection, that there’s something shared between them. It might have something to do with saving the stranger’s life. Wasn’t there some saying about that? And now he’s responsible for him, or something? If that’s the case… well, freaking fantastic. Just his luck to get stuck with Mr. Robot. Not that he believes in that stuff. No, there’s really nothing mystical about it. He’s just the kind of idiot that puts food out for stray cats and then ends up adopting them all, even if they’re flea-ridden, or bad-tempered and bitey, or emotionless not-exactly-human people. 

The soft pad of canine feet interrupts Dean’s thoughts. Bones trots over to inspect the strange man, and at the sight of the dog his face lights up into a wide smile. It transforms his features from anxious and ill to something approaching joy. It’s such a drastic change that Dean feels an answering smile tug at his lips, an impulse he trods into dust under his heel because now is not the damn time, and this guy is not some damn stray cat. He’s an unknown variable. He could be dangerous, have no control over his magic, or any number of other things.

The man ruffles a hand through the fur between Bones’s ears and makes silly noises, which _proves nothing_ , but then his smile slips into another frown. “You’ve got something on your head,” the man says, and pokes through the dog’s fur.

Dean’s cackle of laughter drops into the tense atmosphere. That’s now two people his leftover zombie brains have gotten on, thanks to the dog. That’s a new record. Of course, that’s only because it’s usually just him and Sammy on hunts these days, and Bobby’s too smart to pet a dog that was just in a messy battle.

Sam clears his throat and glares at Dean from where he’s leaning against the other side of the sarcophagus. Dean hadn’t even noticed him come back in, which goes to show he could stand to pay a little more attention to his surroundings.

“Looks pretty clear out there.”

Dean nods. “Sammy, you up to date on all this?”

“I got the gist of it. So, aren’t most graveyards holy ground? How could they raise the dead here?” Sam looks down at the man, brows furrowed in concern.

The man cranes his neck at an awkward angle to look at Sam. His gaze lands low, right in the middle of Sam's chest, and he has to readjust upward, which he does with a few owlish blinks. Sam is used to this, however, because he is of ungodly proportions, and everyone has trouble looking him in the eye. His air of moral superiority doesn’t help, either.

“I’ll just need a moment. I’m not familiar with this place,” the man says. He swivels back around and arranges himself into some weird yoga-like posture and mumbles under his breath. His lips move so infinitesimally that despite Dean’s rapt attention, he can’t make out what the man is saying. 

The hairs on Dean’s arms rise. “Is this a spell? Are you doing a spell?”

The man suddenly slumps back against the sarcophagus. 

“There is no Hallowed ground here. The necromancers performed a Desecration—” the man seems to notice the altar for the first time, and his nose wrinkles “—which would increase the chance of successfully raising undead.” 

Sam nods. "Desecration. That’s a new one for us."

Dean snorts. Sam’s such a brown noser. 

Fine, so maybe it’s a little helpful to have someone here who actually knows about spells and necromancy rituals. That still doesn’t mean that the guy is innocent of any wrongdoing; he and Sam will just have to keep a close eye on him, that’s all. 

“Alright, since you seem to know your stuff,” Dean says, and gestures toward the altar, “is there anything we need to worry about with that mess?” 

The man makes a face. He walks around the altar and after a few moments seems to come to a conclusion; he turns halfway and meets Dean’s eyes with a sidelong look. The flicker of candlelight throws his profile into sharp relief. A little shiver slides down Dean’s spine, but he shakes the feeling off. It’s just the weird light and the weirder stuff that’s going on.

“The cursed relic is gone. It’s safe to assume that they took it with them. But there are a few things here that shouldn’t be left lying around,” he says. He trails a finger across what might be a goat skull. “From what I see, we have two options: Consecrate or Hallow. Once the desecration has been nullified with one of those spells, the altar can be destroyed.”

“What’s the difference?” Sam asks.

“To make the site hallowed ground is a long-term solution. This area will essentially become a sanctuary. However, it takes a great deal of time and effort to complete that spell. There’s at least a day of spellcasting involved. I don’t have all the components needed, and they tend to be expensive and difficult to obtain. To be frank, we may not have the time… or the resources.” He gives the brothers a blatant once-over, apparently deciding they don’t have the means to acquire his precious, expensive components. 

“On the other hand, a consecration will wear away in about a day, but will prevent any more bodies from being raised here in that time. I also already have everything I need to perform it.”

“Okay, great, let’s do that one and then get the hell out of here, yeah?” Dean claps his hands together.

“Need any help?” Sam asks. “I know a little bit about spells.” Remembering Sam’s earlier quip about being the magic master, Dean chuckles. They both ignore him.

The man tilts his head, probably trying to figure out how the big galoot could possibly be helpful. “If you have some holy water, that will speed up the process. Otherwise, I’ll have to take the time to make my own.”

Dean pulls a flask out of an inner jacket pocket and hands it over.

“Speaking of holy water,” Sam says conversationally, “we aren’t normally this trusting of people we’ve just met.” 

“Is that so?” the man replies, sounding not in the least concerned and possibly just a little bit amused. 

“Yeah. Before we healed you up we sprinkled you with holy water. So we know you ain’t evil, and clearly you aren’t undead. But that still leaves a lot of questions that need answers, y’know what I mean?” Dean says.

“I see; you still doubt my story. Very well. But can the interrogation at least wait until this cemetery is secured? I’m supposed to be dead; they may plan on coming back for my corpse once they figure you two have left and the warding has worn off my body.” He sounds disgruntled, put out; Dean’s starting to miss the quiet, timid guy, and spares a moment to fantasize about wiping the smug look right off of his face, but he waves the man on with a flourish.

 

 

They watch from several feet away as the fire starts to lick at the altar. The cloying incense intensifies when it catches, but it’s not enough to overpower the odor of charred viscera that wells up with the flames. Dean covers his face with his arm, but that provides little relief. The fire eats up the oxygen quickly; it’s definitely time to get out of here. Dean picks up his bag and signals for Sam to get a move on. He ignores the way his heart thrums in his ears and how his stomach churns.

"What’s that smell, by the way? The incense, I mean. I know what the rest of it is. Was that part of their spell, or just to set the mood?" he says.

"Why do you assume I know what it is?" the man asks.

"Because you seem like you just know magic stuff," Dean says with a shrug.

"Well, you're not wrong. I do know ‘magic stuff,’” the man says. He makes actual quote fingers. “It’s an ecclesiastical resinous incense comprised of the fairly standard frankincense, galbanum, labdanum, and myrrh mixture. They probably added vetiver and dragon's blood, as well. But I don’t think that’s what you’re smelling. A bundle of dried yew, henbane, and wormwood was burned on the altar. It’s essentially the antithesis of the holy properties of the incense, and helps concentrate negative energy for casting spells that relate to death and the undead.” 

Dean doesn’t understand half the things the man just said but Sam looks like he wants to talk shop, so Dean forestalls any further conversation and shushes them with a hand wave. He pulls the mausoleum door open, peers out into the night, and lets his eyes adjust to the sudden darkness. At least there are no monsters or their necromancer puppet masters lurking. He leads them off into the dark, but only manages a few paces before the overwhelming stillness of the graveyard gets oppressive. Fortunately, the man seems to agree.

“What brought you two out here tonight? Was it blind luck that I was saved, or did you have a purpose?” he asks.

Sam laughs. “Honestly, it’s probably a combination of both. My brother and I are hunters. Like you, we travel around looking for trouble. We don’t deal with magic that much, though—especially not necromancy. Mostly it’s just your run-of-the-mill vampires and werewolves, with only the occasional rogue fire wizard.” 

Dean frowns at Sam’s cavalier attitude toward rogue fire wizards.

“So anyway, a few days ago, the next town over had what the locals were calling a ‘graveyard disturbance,’ where two graves were dug up. Doesn’t happen all that often, as you can probably imagine, so it made the news. We were in the area, more or less, and when we heard about it, we decided to check into it. Only when we got there...”

“Place was empty. Graves dug up, but no bodies, no baddies,” Dean says.

“Which is to be expected, really; the dates of burial told us someone was raising the dead, and that it wasn’t ghouls or anything like that,” Sam says. “It was only a small plot in that other town—there were just a handful of graves in total—so it was most likely a practice run to work out the kinks. Based on this cemetery’s larger size and its location at the outskirts of town, I thought it was the likely choice for the next attempt. And it looks like I was right. We got here as quickly as we could, but, well…” He trails off again, shrugging one shoulder inelegantly. 

“Walked right into the fucking zombie apocalypse.” Dean laughs, but it sounds hollow even to himself. “Alright, so now you know our life story. Your turn.”

The man looks straight at him for a moment, then seems to come to a decision.

“My name is James Novak, and… I think I could use your help with this case.”

“Okay. Well, James, I’m Dean, and this is my brother, Sam. You want us to go through the drill? Silver, holy water, the whole nine yards?” Dean shakes his flask. Sam frowns but pulls out his own flask, too.

The man—James—shakes his head. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I just need to hear what you have to say.”

Huh. “You got a spell that can tell if we’re lying or something? Or are you just that trusting?”

“Something like a spell,” James says dryly. 

“Alright, here’s the deal. Provided you don’t try to hurt us, we won’t hurt you. Now, Sam and I, we’re used to working alone. That’s how we like it. But if you are who you say you are, we can team up for a bit. Get your case closed that much quicker.”

“Dean…” Sam says. He wears his disapproval of Dean’s manners like a cloud of bad cologne. “We’d be happy to help out, James. If they’re raising this many undead creatures, they must be doing something with them, and it’s probably not good.”

James doesn’t reply, and they make their way through the cemetery. The dead grass inside the grounds transitions to healthy, overgrown weeds on the other side of the decorative wrought iron fence that forms the boundary of the cemetery. Dean swings the gate open and the three of them pass through with barely concealed relief. Whatever spell James did inside that mausoleum, it didn’t chase away the bad feeling of the place.

“I think I can safely say that I’m happy to get out of here,” James says. He gestures impatiently at the dark shape of a car parked along the roadside ditch. “This is your vehicle, I presume?”

“That’s my Baby! A ‘67 Chevy Impala. Best damn car a guy could ever have.” 

The vehicle is black, and nothing more than a dark shape in the gloom of night except for the glint of well-maintained chrome reflected in the beam of Dean’s flashlight. Despite that, Dean can pick out every inch of her sleek form from sheer familiarity. She’s far more than just a vehicle. She’s security, and she’s home. Dean gives her an affectionate pat as he rounds the back to open the trunk.

“Ugh, I need a freaking shower,” Sam says. His bag lands with a _thunk_. Dean drops his stuff besides Sam’s.

“Understatement of the year. We got a room at a motel not far from here, James. Where did you bunk up?” Dean asks. He drops into the driver’s seat with a grunt, and Sam slides stiffly into shotgun. Bones hops into the back, and James follows. He has to push the dog over to one side of the seat as he crawls in.

“The dog smells,” James says. “Must I sit back here?”

“Yes,” Sam and Dean reply in unison.

“Fine. I think it would be unwise to return to where I was ambushed and captured. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure where we are, but I have most of my important things here with me,” James says once he gets situated. 

Dean looks over at Sam, who’s probably got the same skeptical expression Dean has, considering James’s only possession is a satchel that looks like it couldn’t hold much more than a laptop.

“Hah, okay. Is it bigger on the inside?” Sam says. Dean glares at him; he’s _fairly_ certain that was a _Doctor Who_ joke.

“Yes,” James says. “It is.”

Dean watches James in the rearview mirror. He can’t quite shake the idea that the guy’s fucking with them. It must be the unaccountably serene expression James sports despite sitting next to a large, friendly dog that’s in dire need of a bath. But there’s jack-all Dean can do about it now, so they might as well get the hell out of here.

“Alrighty then. You can stay with us. Let’s get a move on,” Dean says, turning the key in the ignition. The car comes to life with a deep rumbling purr, and they head out into the night.


	3. Big City Lullaby

_ City lights flash by me _ _  
_ _ And I don't know where I am _

The town, like so many Midwestern small towns, has nothing much to offer besides decaying strip malls, a Wal-Mart, fast food joints, and bars. Even the greasy spoon diner seems to be a dying breed, if the dilapidated and empty 24-hour specimen next to the motel is any indication. The motel itself is one of those single-story “L” shaped buildings with the flickering atomic age neon sign proclaiming, unsurprisingly, vacancy. They pull up to a room at about the midway point, and Dean eases the car to a stop. 

When the door to the room swings open, James stops short on the threshold, mouth agape, while Sam and Dean step around him. 

“Home sweet home, Jimmy!” Dean files away James’s reaction with a barely concealed smirk. Sure, the place might have avocado walls and shag carpeting and an antlered deer head mounted between the two queen beds, but what’s a hunt without a stay at a run-down motel where the interior hasn’t been updated for forty years? For him and Sam, dumps like this are the only home they know besides the Impala.

Dean dumps his bag on the bed closest to the door, while Sam places his on the fold-out luggage stand next to the dresser where the TV sits. There are only the two beds, and James hovers near the door for a moment or two before he hesitantly sets his bag on the corner of Dean’s bed.

Sam herds the dog in front of him and they dash into the bathroom before anyone else even has a chance. The shower starts up with a protesting squeal. It’ll probably take a while to get the dog clean, so Dean refills the water and food bowls, then cleans up the room a little bit to pass the time. He sneaks a few glances over at James while he fiddles around in the kitchenette; the man is preoccupied with his gear, and Dean can observe him sort of unobtrusively.

James is dressed in the remnants of a suit, but the jacket is long since gone, and the partly unbuttoned shirt is stained with dirt (or what he hopes is dirt. It could always be dried-out Mysterious Necromantic Ritual Goo, too). His sleeves were cut off at the elbows, probably for the blood-letting, but at least the bandages Dean put on him are much better than the ones he’d been found with. His slacks are torn in the knees and are likely just as filthy as the rest of him. Despite that, James’ll probably be a decent enough looking guy once he cleans up, gets some sleep, and recovers a little bit. Which reminds him...

“You sure you don’t need anything? We could go back to that Wal-Mart, pick you up some clothes. Something better for hunting, maybe, if we’re gonna be working together for a while.” 

“Better for hunting? What do you mean by that?” James asks. He doesn’t seem annoyed or insulted, but Dean’s starting to realize the guy is kinda hard to read. He appears to come to his own conclusion, as he continues: “Dressing in this manner gets me access to places that are otherwise off-limits.”

James levels a pointed look at Dean’s grime-encrusted ensemble of old t-shirt, faded jeans, and plaid buttondown flannel. “Plus, people take me seriously,” he adds, apparently completely oblivious of his clothing torn to shreds, the smudge of dirt on his cheek, and his hair sticking up all over the place. 

“Hey, I clean up damn nice!” Dean says. “A suit’s not much good for combat, smartass. Or running from fucking zombies. Uh, um… Not that I ran away from ‘em; that was a strategic attempt to draw some of them away from Sammy.” 

He paws through his bag for clean, unzombified clothing, but when James laughs at him, Dean looks up at him in time to catch his eye, and does a double-take. He’d forgotten about the unnatural iris color, and that the guy wasn’t quite… normal. He and Sammy don’t often deal with people who aren’t entirely human, no matter what the guys says, and the eye thing is just weird. And the shiny hair, and the glowing… Frankly, the whole damn thing is just fucking _weird_. But at the same time, he’s not as weirded out as he should be. Which just makes him feel weird about the whole thing. And apparently he can’t even make his own thoughts make sense, so that’s just great.

“Thank you for the offer, Dean, but I’ll be fine with what I have here.” James fingers the flap of his bag idly.

It takes Dean a moment to realize that James is finally responding to his offer of a trip to Wal-Mart, but that’s because he’s had a thought about the man’s bag. “That isn’t really magic, is it? You were just fucking with us?” 

Before James can reply, Dean reaches out and grabs the bag out of James’s hands. He flips open the top and peers inside.

“What the fuck—” 

He snaps it shut, and aims a wild look up at James.

“Huh.” He passes the bag back. “A magic bag! That’s very, uh, handy,” he says. _Wow, how lame, Dean_. Then again, it’s not every day you look into a bag and see vast, swirling emptiness and are faced with the incomprehensibility of interdimensional space instead of the stuff you’re expecting to see, like a wallet, tissues, maybe some aspirin, a phone charger or a book, and that cough drop that fell out of its wrapper eons ago.

Radiating smugness, James sets the bag down. “I did say it was bigger on the inside, Dean.”

“So you did. So you did,” Dean stammers, nodding like a sprung jack-in-the-box. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Dean is vaguely aware that the shower’s been shut off. However, he can’t tear his eyes away from James, who’s pulling a full change of clothes out of his tiny, laptop-sized, friggin’ magic bag that had _nothing in it_ just a moment ago. _Fucking magic._

“Unfortunately, this is my only suit. I suppose I’ll fit right in with you two, with my other clothing.” James speaks in a bland, conversational tone, like Dean’s totally not having a freakout right across from him. Amid said freakout, Dean ignores the dig at his appearance as he watches James set a hooded sweatshirt down on the bed, followed by dark jeans, a t-shirt, a very nice pair of wool hiking socks, a pair of dark boxer briefs, and, finally, some dark blue sneakers that are those remakes of 70s running shoes that are only good for casual wear by today's standards of technological advances—

“We can go get you another suit,” Dean finds himself saying, his mouth effectively breaking him out of his moment. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, which suddenly feels hot.

James laughs again. Apparently, he finds Dean hilarious when he’s not even trying to be funny.

“I may take you up on that at some point. But for now, I think it’s your turn for the shower,” he says, pointing behind Dean. Sam exits the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around his waist. He stumbles around the dog, who seems determined to trip him up, and with Sam in only one tiny towel, that’s downright dangerous.

“Dude,” Dean hisses, “put some clothes on!”

“I forgot to take them in with me! I just came out to get—hey!” Sam says. He keeps a tight grip on his towel as Dean darts around him and shuts the bathroom door with more force than is strictly necessary. 

 

Dean tests the water temperature every few seconds, but it’s a probably a full minute before he realizes that Sam used up all the hot water and that this is as warm as it’s gonna get. Feeling stupid, something that’s been happening a lot the past couple of hours, he steels himself as he ducks into the tub. Still, he gasps in shock when the water hits him. Showers are his go-to when he needs to calm down, though, so despite the unpleasant water temperature, he forces himself to relax into the spray. 

This whole situation is fucked. Necromancers, _zombies_. Christ. He kind of wishes that it had been anyone but them that caught onto this thing and stumbled into that graveyard and got recruited. But it wasn’t; so that means it’s them that’s gotta take care of it. Well. It sucks, but it’s probably for the best. He can’t imagine other hunters finding a random comatose guy and spending time and resources to heal ‘im up. 

Something is off about that guy, though, and it’s not the fact that he’s a magic user, although that certainly doesn’t help the guy’s case any. It sets Dean on edge, but… not necessarily in a bad way. He has no idea why, either. It’s not precisely that he thinks James is lying to them (other than about being human), because him and Sam are pretty good at figuring out when they’re being lied to. Maybe the guy doesn’t know he’s lying. Maybe he isn’t lying so much as holding back, because he doesn’t trust them yet. Or maybe Dean’s overestimating how good he is at lie detecting. Guy could be planning to kill them in their sleep for all he knows. Cheerful thought.

If there’s anything he’s sure of, though, it’s that the guy did not end up bloody and dying on the floor of that mausoleum of his own free will. What had James said before he backtracked? That the necromancers wanted him for his blood? Right, that whole not-human thing that he tried to deny. Dean digs through his memory, but what he knows of magical bloodlines could fill a thimble. Nothing he’s familiar with fits what he knows about James: he _looks_ human, but he glows, has weird-colored eyes, has weird shiny hair, oh, and _he fucking glows_. He and Sam gotta look into this some more. Actually, since they have to meet up with Bobby anyway, they should ask him. That’s definitely the better bet, what with his enormous library of lore.

Alright, so then there’s the necromancer to deal with. Except there’s more than one, according to what James said. Anyway, you’ve gotta be pretty damn powerful to raise that many dead all at once, even with the desecration spell and goat skulls and entrails and whatever else was spread all over that altar. You don’t get to be that powerful without someone knowing about it. He and Sam had done their research in that first town; Dean even went so far as to check in with one of his less salubrious contacts. He made sure Sam wasn’t around for that call, but it was a bust, anyway. No one they know has any idea who could have been behind this. And if there’s anything he really hates (ok, he hates a lot of things, but that’s besides the point), it’s being totally clueless. Kind of hard to make a plan when you don’t know who or what you’re planning against.

Although… James had said he’d tracked the cultists after they’d stolen some artifacts. If he was able to do that, he probably does know more than he’s letting them in on, and that? That’s not cool. He absolutely hates it when people don’t give him the information he needs in order to get a job done. Usually it means they’re hiding their own culpability. He and Sam may have already agreed to work with James, but they could easily ditch him and leave him to his own devices. But that doesn’t seem to be the right move. For whatever reason, it feels like the guy’s on the level, despite whatever he’s hiding from them. So, fine: they stick together for now and get this case wrapped up fast. And to do that, they gotta find out what the fucker knows.

This is stupid. He’s just going in circles.

Dean rinses the shampoo out of his hair. The sudsy froth sluices down his back, with some running over his face. He squeezes his eyes tight against it. When his eyes are clear, the first thing he notices is that Sam’s shampoo and the dog’s shampoo are sitting right next to each other on the ledge. _Fuck._ The way today’s gone, he probably grabbed the dog’s shampoo by accident. He slams the shower handle down and the water stops abruptly.

On his way out of the tub, he stubs his toe on the rim and nearly kills himself, only just escaping certain death by bracing himself against the wall. He swipes at himself with the towel and jams himself into his clothes; of course, he catches his foot in the leg of his jeans and falls into the edge of the sink and smacks his elbow on it. In an even fouler mood than when he entered the bathroom, he stomps back out of it.

Sam and James both startle at Dean’s noisy exit from the bathroom, and for some perverse reason their wide-eyed stares mollify him a little bit. The two of them sit side-by-side on Dean’s bed—now completely covered in what must be James’s weird crap—and are huddled together and bent over a small leather-bound book.

“What’s that? Sam’s diary?”

Sam gives him a flat stare, used to Dean’s shit. James, however, looks wounded. With effort, Dean snaps himself out of his mood and busies himself with his laundry.

“No, it’s my spellbook. Sam was curious,” James says.

Dean snorts. 

“Most of it is pretty far beyond my skill level, but he’s got some really neat spells,” Sam says. Dean knows that look, the earnest excitement bursting out of his brother’s face. Dean sighs. Sounds like Sam’s a goner for this dude already, and all it took was a fricken’ spellbook.

“Yeah, like?” He shoves his dirty (befouled, completely ruined by zombie brains) shirt and button-down into a smiley-faced plastic shopping bag and ties the top shut. The clothes’ll have to be trashed. Maybe even burned. Yeah, burning’s good. 

“Okay, so, get this. He can make us stronger, smarter—” Dean snorts again “—or faster for a short while. He can do temporary weapon enhancements. He knows a lot more ways to heal than you or I do, and Dean, he can even bring someone back to life.” 

“For real.” Dean looks up at James sharply, attention finally caught well and good. “How’s that work?”

“It’s fairly complicated, but in short, to be revived by this spell, you cannot have been deceased for very long, minutes at most. It also will not work if you were slain by certain necromantic spells, so try to avoid death rays,” James says, with a very bland look at Dean.

No death rays? A joke about not being able to get a tan is just on the tip of his tongue, but it doesn’t seem right and he keeps his mouth shut as he pulls on a pair of clean socks. Heaviness settles in his chest.

“Well, that’s as useless as most magic,” he finally says. He should know better than to expect miracles, especially after this much time has passed, yet he keeps on getting his hopes up. They’ll probably always keep looking for a way to cheat death, but he’s gotta admit, everything they’ve come across so far has been a dead end, and it’s not looking good.

“Quite the opposite,” James disagrees. He seems to want to say more on the matter, but Dean waves him off, not wanting to explain his comment. Not yet. Not _ever_ , for that matter.

“Well, if the bad guys come after us, at least we got you to throw some magic missiles at them,” he says, and grins at the cleric. The stiffness at the corners of his mouth pulls at his cheeks.  
“Magic mis—? That’s not really what I do…” James replies, with a confused frown. 

“Put on your robe and wizard hat, eh, Jimmy?”

“He’s not a wizard, Dean!” Sam says, annoyed enough to be goaded into a response despite almost certainly knowing better. 

“I’m a cleric, and a soldier—” James says. He sounds frustrated, argumentative.

“Ah, nevermind.” Dean waves them away dismissively, turning back to his clothes, maybe a tiny bit miffed they aren’t picking up what he’s putting down. But at least there’s a change in topic. “You guys are no fun.”

James glowers at him and drops the spellbook down on the bed where it lands with a soft plop. “I have no idea what just happened, so I suppose I’ll take my shower now.” 

“Just FYI, there’s no hot water. Sam used it all!” Dean calls after him.

James shuts the door behind him without replying, but Sam takes the bait right on cue.

“Dude, shut up. What’s with you all of a sudden?” He shoots a glare over at his brother, but apparently isn’t expecting a response since he flops onto his bed and immediately closes his eyes. The dog hops up next to him. "I'm just gonna get a few minutes of shut-eye, wake me up when we're ready to go eat."

It only takes a few minutes for Sam to drop off. Once he does, Dean’s finally able to stop shuffling his laundry around like he’s actually accomplishing something. He slides a glance at the bathroom door, despite the fact that he can hear the shower still running, then lets his gaze roam over the James’s things. He doesn't hesitate to pass over the spellbook that Sam had been looking at with James, since he’s complete shit at written spellwork, and instead focuses on the rest. 

And there’s plenty of that. There's perfectly common things like soap, a candle, a lighter and some matches, the lighter fluid, a metal water bottle, and some trail mix. Then there's the weird shit, like handcuffs with sigils etched on them, a grappling hook and several yards of coiled thin nylon rope, some vials and tiny wooden boxes that probably contain weird spell components like fingernail clippings and shit. A few rolled-up scrolls. And… okay. There’s a couple of polished wood sticks. Definitely not dildos, so probably wands. The dude is totally a fucking wizard. He chuckles at his own dumb joke, and picks up one of the wands idly. He’s used a wand before, and they _can_ be pretty useful. The one in his hand has an inscription on the wood, and he peers at it closely, trying to make out the markings. Just then, however, the shower shuts off, and he drops the wand guiltily and tries to make himself look busy again.

 

The diner is entirely unremarkable, small and shoebox-shaped, with a low-peaked shingled roof and faded yellow paint. The sign affixed to the roof proclaims the establishment as, simply, "24 HR DINER." Dean figures that this is at least accurate, if nothing else.

There’s virtually no distinction between this place and the hundred other diners he and Sam have frequented over the years. The dingy interior with its anemic fluorescent lighting is hardly welcoming, which probably explains the only other customer, an old lady seated at a booth, hunched over her plate with a plastic carafe of coffee and a crumpled packet of smokes next to her elbow. She jumps in her seat as they walk by and turns her face away; she has long, wild white hair, but is dressed like someone forty years younger—a black leather jacket over a dark purple hoodie—and Dean chuckles to himself. Wisconsin gets all the weirdos.

Sam walks the length of the diner and drops into a booth in the corner, back to the wall, and Dean follows suit. The woman watches them with a keen eye, and Dean’s glad that he’s cut off from her view when James slides into the booth opposite him. She’s probably a regular and just miffed at the newcomers, but it’s still creepy as hell.

Dean isn't impressed with the place, but it’s clean, and they've certainly been in worse. He gets the impression James has never been in a diner before, though. The man gawks at everything: he glares at the specials board, frowns at the pie case, and stares bemusedly at the nostalgic advertisements on the walls for soda and full-service gas stations. He even turns around to scowl at the woman, who immediately hunches over further in the face of James’s ire; Dean has trouble suppressing a chuckle at that.

Shortly after they sit down, their server—practically a kid, and wearing an awful red and white striped uniform shirt—brings water and some menus over to the table.

“Evening, guys. How are you all doing?”

“Fine, thank you,” James says with the utmost seriousness.

"Hey, how’s it going—” Dean peers at the tag on the server’s apron “—Alfie?”

"Just fine, thank you. It’s a slow night tonight, though," Alfie says, as if this were the kind of place that had busy nights. "Need a few minutes, or do you guys know what you want?"

“Slow night, yeah, of course. Uh, just a bacon cheeseburger, fries, and coffee for me.” 

Sam orders some whole grain sandwich and a side salad while James flips through the menu madly. When Alfie clears his throat, James tosses the menu down in defeat and tells the server he’ll just have the same as Dean, which is more gratifying than it should be.

They all wait in stilted silence while Alfie checks up on the old lady; the boy laughs a little nervously at something she says and shies away from the pat on the arm she gives him. When he finally disappears into the back, the woman watches him go and doesn’t even try to hide her interest until Dean’s glare comes to her attention, and then she ducks her head down and focuses on her plate.

“That’s not creepy at all,” Dean mutters.

“I hardly see how some batty old lady is relevant to our larger issues, Dean,” Sam says, and Dean sighs in acquiescence; they do have bigger fish to fry.

"So James, tell us about this case of yours," Sam says. 

"Time to spill the beans, man." Dean fiddles with his water glass, turning it in circles.

"What else could you possibly want to know?" James says, looking down at his paper placemat. He trails one finger through the maze printed on it.

"What else?” Dean snorts. “We don’t know _anything_. Kind of hard to work a case if you don’t know shit. But, for starters, how about how you got into this line of work. You know, how you got to be a wizard." He hadn’t set out to needle the guy like that again, but he finds it incredibly hard to resist. It’s the guy’s own fault, somehow. 

“I’m a _cleric_. It’s incredibly different, and vastly superior—oh, you’re joking again, aren’t you?” James frowns. “In any case, how I got into this line of work is hardly important. A cleric is what I’ve always been and what I’ll always be.”

“Alright, sure. Dean and I can relate. We grew up in the life, too. But don’t most clerics have a church that they serve? What drew you away, out on the road—what was it you said you did—chasing down cursed objects, performing exorcisms?” Sam’s patented ‘I’m completely harmless’ routine doesn’t really work on James; his mouth flattens into a mulish line as he regards the brothers, eyes flicking between them.

“It is simply something that needed doing, and something that I’m very good at,” James says.

“C’mon, man. Level with us. I get wanting to keep some shit to yourself, I really do. But if we’re working together on this, we gotta have all the info we can get. What Sam really wants to know is how you got in on this job, how you were able to follow them, stuff like that,” Dean says.

“I see your point. I did indeed belong to a Church at one time, early on in my career, and I still have a few friends there. I was informed that an unholy symbol was stolen from a highly secure vault, and was subsequently contracted for its retrieval. I’m magically attuned to such things and can trace them even when there's no physical evidence to follow. So I picked up the trail and followed it to—where are we, by the way?” he breaks off and glances out the window, but there's nothing to see except the neon sign for the motel out by the road.

“Welcome to Southern Wisconsin,” Sam says. 

James blinks and sits as still as a statue. Dean waves a hand in front of James’s face, and after a moment he unfreezes.

“Wisconsin! But that’s—I don’t understand why they’d bring me so far. I trailed them to an old Mason’s lodge in Freeport, but was ambushed at my hotel before I could take any action against them. Somehow they knew I was there, and knew enough about me to effectively counter my resistence. From listening to their spellwork, I was able to determine that they captured me because of my ancestral heritage. Oh—um,” James says. He looks completely stricken, and clasps his hands together almost painfully tight.

“James, relax. We already know that you’re… different. It was pretty obvious when we revived you. But we don’t hold it against you, _do we_ , Dean? But if your heritage is important to the necromancers, if it’s wrapped up in their end game somehow, maybe you should tell us about it,” Sam says.

James gazes slides away from Sam’s earnest look and lands on his hands, still twining around one another; he spreads his hands out and regards the backs for several longs seconds before placing them firmly on the table. He has largeish hands with long fingers—not the delicate hands that Dean’s come to expect from spellcasters and magic users, but not really rugged enough for hand-to-hand combat, either.

“Yes, fine, I suppose I should.” James glares half-heartedly at Dean, who had barely even opened his mouth. “You have to understand why I didn’t want to broadcast my ancestry. I’m descended from Celestials. There aren’t many humans with Celestial heritage, and we’re often sought after by those who wish to use us for nefarious purposes. My kind is typically of a very 'good' nature. However, when corrupted, that intrinsic 'goodness' is twisted into a very strong form of evil. Thus, our blood is often used for evil spells and rituals. And there have been cases… instances where… we can be turned into powerful undead creatures."

"Celestial? So, what, you’re part angel?” Dean digests that for a moment. “And if you go dark side, the Empire wins?"

Sam sighs, but James nods even though he looks confused.

"I suppose that would be the layperson’s understanding of the situation… although I’m not sure I understand that reference. There is no way to be certain whether I'd be under the necromancer's control like the rest of their risen slaves, but I suspect that even if I were not, I'd be immensely dangerous. When corrupted like that, my kind are driven to eradicate all things good and pure—we become the opposite of everything we are in life."

"Guess it's a good thing we came along and saved your ass right when we did," Dean muses. "And you don't know anything about this necromancer? Who or what they are, what their endgame is? Or why they came up here from Illinois?"

A movement off to the side startles Dean, but it's just Alfie coming up to the booth with their food, and the conversation pauses. He’s not sure just how aware the locals are about what’s really going on, but there’s usually no good response to ‘Hey, by the way, there’s a necromancer and his zombie puppets loose in your town,’ so he shovels some fries in his mouth while waiting for Alfie to leave.

Once Alfie disappears back into the kitchen—bypassing the old lady’s booth, smart boy—James picks up the thread of conversation again, but he doesn’t make eye contact with either Sam or Dean, preferring instead to rearrange the french fries on his plate. "With the limited information available to me, I can only surmise that the broad goal is a grab for power by someone who only very recently became powerful enough to raise the dead in such quantities. And, don’t forget, this is a team of at least two. They've likely been practicing in secret, but we may be able to gather information about them through the religious cult affiliated with the icon they stole."

James has had his eyes trained down at his plate since Alfie set it in front of him. The guy could just be that hungry, but his shoulders are stiff, and Dean notices a slight tremor in his hands as he brings his burger up for a bite. Not for the first time, Dean wonders just what it is that James isn’t telling them.

"That's a start," Sam says with his patented ‘putting a positive spin on it’ voice, but they spend the rest of their meal in silence.

They don’t linger over their food, since it’s mediocre at best, but finish as quickly as they can, eager to get some rest. As they pass in front of the diner on their return to the motel next door, Dean casts one last glance back and catches the old woman staring after them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coupla things regarding this chapter:  
> Technically, divine casters like clerics don't use spellbooks; they receive their spells directly from the deity they worship. However, I couldn't resist having Sam and Cas geeking out over a spellbook (and I thought it tied in nicely with the concept of hunter journals).
> 
> In Pathfinder terms, Cas is an Aasimar. He has human parents and looks almost entirely human (except for the aforementioned jewel-toned eyes, lustrous skin, etc.) but has manifested a significant amount of celestial blood. Dean doesn’t know anything about celestial ancestry, so he latches onto ‘angel’, something he’s familiar with in terms of popular or common knowledge. His understanding of Celestial beings is about as correct as the average person in the SPN universe’s understanding of angels in that world (think Houses of the Holy). Which is to say, almost completely wrong.


	4. Night of the Living Dead

_Well, open your eyes now  
_ _This ain't no fantasy, boy_

“Where’s he gonna sleep?” Dean jerks his head toward the bathroom, where James has been sequestered for the past ten minutes. “The fuck is he doing in there, anyway?”

“Hmm?” Sam’s already drifting off, but at Dean’s question, he rouses slightly. “He said something about needing a quiet place to prep spells. Anyway, isn’t Mom’s old cot in the trunk?” Sam’s voice trails off as he slips into slumber. Dean would bitch about having to go back out to the car, but there’s no point if Sam’s not awake enough to be annoyed by it.

By the time Dean manages to dig the cot and the blanket out of the trunk and wrangle them back into the room, Sam’s fast asleep, feet hanging off the end of the bed. Bones is curled up next to him. James is still in the bathroom, doing his spell stuff or whatever, which means he hasn’t cleared his junk off of the other bed. Dean’s too tired to even think about moving it all, but he does bag up the man’s discarded, ruined clothing and the bandages. He chucks the smiley-face bag by the door. They’ll toss that stuff in the morning, probably in the dumpster behind the diner. No point in freaking out some poor housekeeper with bloody rags in the bathroom wastebasket.

He’s not sure why, but he finds himself fingering the wands again. Running his hand along the smooth lengths is hypnotic and soothing. He picks up the one he’d been scrutinizing earlier and looks over the inscription again. He’s a little rusty, but it looks like it’s for sending communications over long distances, although he can’t imagine how useful it’d be when everyone and their mother has a cell phone. The next one he picks up is for healing, and yeah, that’s fucking useful. 

With a long-suffering sigh, he leaves James’s stuff alone and sets up the cot. He grabs the extra pillow from his bed. It’s impossible to settle on the cot comfortably. The damn thing clearly wasn’t made for someone his size, and it’s gotta be older than him, too. The canvas sags so badly in the center that one of the supports digs into the small of his back. In the end, he uses the blanket as padding and lies on top, uncovered and shivering.

 

Dean wakes suddenly. The silence in the room is overwhelming. He lies there, ears straining, trying to figure out why he woke up. Nothing sounds out of place. He rolls over, tucks himself back under the blanket—but that seems wrong—and looks for some measure of comfort so he can pass out again. The cot creaks precariously. The blanket under him shifts and the wood support pokes him right in a tender spot. _Fucking fantastic_. The dog, hearing the racket, trots over from his new position by the door and whines softly.

With a groan, Dean sits up and swings his legs to the floor. He scrubs sleepily at his eyes and considers waking Sam. Instead, he gropes around for his boots. He wonders what James would think about his outfit now, as he shuffles around in nothing but a t-shirt, underwear, and work boots. Wonders what time it is. 

His phone shows 5:32 am, but it doesn’t feel like he got almost five hours of sleep. Feels like only minutes. In the ambient light from the phone screen, Sam- and James-shaped lumps are asleep in their beds. If he were awake and his brain were functioning, he’d probably be envious of them.

It takes effort to make the door work, but eventually it swings open and he shuffles out into the predawn chill of late September in the Upper Midwest.

Outside, the cold air is enough make him marginally more alert. Fog blankets the parking lot; it has a strange pearlescent glow to it that suggests the sun will rise soon. He shivers. Maybe he should have brought that second blanket that materialized overnight. Despite the fact he can’t see more than ten feet in front of him and the clinging damp of it, the fog’s kind of a relief. Not that anyone’s looking out of their grimy motel windows at this ungodly hour, anyway, but _if_ they were, they wouldn’t be able to see him looking like an idiot.

Bones leads him over to the strand of spindly trees and thick brush that separates the parking lot from the highway. The trees dropped their leaves early. Bare branches pierce through the fog, skeletal fingers that reach for the sky. The fog sluggishly swirls around while the dog gets on with his business. Bones snuffles around through the weeds once he’s done. Dean’s too awake now to go back to sleep, so there’s no real point in rushing back in. He just kind of stares off into space, with a vague hope that the dog doesn’t scare up a skunk, when the dead silence finally registers with him.

He holds his breath, listening intently: there are no sparrows fighting over seeds or crumbs, no chirp of crickets, no frogs. Not even a wisp of wind rustling a leaf or branch. Were there birds when they came out? He can’t remember. Even Bones is still now, staring through impenetrable brush and fog out toward the highway. A violent shiver shimmies down Dean’s spine, pricking up the hairs on the back of his neck and arms and legs as it goes. 

“Bones, let’s go. Something’s not right.” Even as he speaks, Bones turns and runs for the building, quickly disappearing into the thickening fog. Dean jogs after him, untied boots scuffing the pavement.

“Yeah, this is so not good,” he mutters to himself. The fog is so thick now he can’t see the motel; only a few minutes ago he could see straight across the parking lot. His heart thumps in his chest, tattooing his ribs with anxiety.

The Impala suddenly looms up ahead of him, and the door to the room sullenly swims into view beyond the dark shape of the car. He gets himself and the dog inside and locks the door behind him before he realizes that they’re going to have to get _out_ of this death trap, not hunker down in it. He shucks off his boots while he fumbles for the small table lamp. It sputters to life, the dim glow not nearly enough to illuminate the room.

It’s enough to wake James, though; he bolts upright and rubs at his eyes. “Dean? What’s going on?”

“Something’s coming. Sam! Get up! We gotta go. ”

A lifetime of similar situations means that Sam wakes quickly. Fueled by adrenaline, they scramble around the room throwing on whatever clothes come to hand, packing everything else hurriedly. Dean never even thinks twice about taking the time to fold down the cot. It was Mom’s. 

"What the hell is going on, Dean?" Sam’s voice is terse and clipped. Dean cracks open the door to peer out into the parking lot. He ignores Sam for a moment, concentrating on the scene outdoors. No more than a few minutes have passed since he came inside. The parking lot seems just as empty as it had been then, the fog just as thick, with the same eerie glow to it.

He feels the same damn wrongness, too.

"I don't know, Sammy. Everything was just off."

"May I?" James asks, nudging Dean aside to take his position. Jeez, the guy’s pushy. Dean refuses to be moved aside, but James is so close his hair tickles Dean’s nose, still smelling of his shower from last night. They stay like that for too long, crammed too close together, but James is deep in concentration and doesn’t notice Dean’s umbrage; instead he stares through the cracked open door, lips moving soundlessly in another spell, before he speaks again. "There's a number of undead creatures approaching. Less than ten, I think."

"Less than—christ. C'mon, we gotta book it outta here while we still can." 

"James, can you use whatever spell you're doing to figure out who's behind this?" Sam says before Dean can shoulder his way out the door.

"No. Whoever is doing this is out of range. At the moment, all I can sense is the pack of creatures about to trap us in this room." 

The man’s voice snaps through the quiet room, and Dean shoots a surprised glance at him.

“Okay, can you tell if they’re after us, or just anyone?” Sam continues doggedly. 

“I can’t discern that, and we _need to leave_. Is there somewhere safe we can go? Preferably somewhere secret? They must have tracked us here somehow.” 

“If we leave, won’t they just attack anyone nearby?” Dean asks.

“If it makes you feel any better, Dean, they probably are after us—or, at the very least, me—and it doesn’t really matter, because we’re targets either way.” James yanks open the door and strides outside.

“Word to the wise? Don’t piss off the nerd angels,” Dean says under his breath to Sam, who chuckles softly. They follow James outside with Bones taking up the rear, tail tucked between his legs and ears flattened back along his skull. 

Fog swirls sluggishly in the parking lot. It almost seems alive, like it’s searching them out: tendrils of vapor slither through the air and grasp at them as they walk the few short steps to the car—a few short steps that somehow still take forever. The fog is so dense Dean can feel moisture collecting on his exposed skin, and he relaxes his grip on his shotgun to wipe his hand on his pants. The fog also muffles and distorts what little noise they make, and it’s incredibly disorienting. Those footsteps could be his. Or they could be a zombie’s, and they won’t have a clue until it lunges at them out of the fog. All of his practiced levity disappears in an instant. “Fuck, we’re really screwed, aren’t we?” he whispers.

Sam meets his eyes for a moment, but instead of replying, raises his shotgun, and moves alongside the car with careful, quiet steps. James suddenly stops ahead of them, fumbles around in his hoodie pocket and pulls out what looks like a charm on a cord. He holds it out in front of himself like a shield.

“They’re close,” James says quietly. Dean and Sam stop dead in their tracks, ears and eyes straining to pick up whatever James is sensing—although Sam can probably feel them, too, which just leaves Dean as the clueless, useless one. “Eight zombies.”

“Freaking fantastic.”

Shambling shapes are materializing out of the fog now. At least they aren’t like those fast fuckers they had to deal with at the cemetery. Dean raises his shotgun, taking careful aim at the first zombie about to clear the fog, and he knows Sam’s doing the same nearby. But then, oddly, Sam’s stance falters, and his gun lowers slightly.

“Sammy?”

“Something’s wrong about this,” Sam says in a low voice. 

“Gee, ya think?”

“No, I mean—” 

A blinding flash of light cuts Sam off mid-sentence. When it fades a moment later, Dean lowers the arm he’d reflexively used to shield his eyes, only to see a bunch of zombies scattered on the pavement. Three are still upright, inexorably moving toward James.

“What the fuck was that?” Sam calls out, and fires at one of the remaining creatures. Its head explodes in a spray of brains and blood, and the corpse drops to the ground. The next closest is a withered husk compared to the others, but Dean doesn’t think anything of it, being more concerned with the stench of putrescence that wafts over to them. Trying not to gag, he fires. His shot takes a chunk of the thing’s head, but instead of dropping lifeless to the ground, it swings toward Dean.

And, seeing the ruin of its face, Dean freezes. Desiccated brains and cracked skull fragments trail out from the hole in the side of its skull. One eye remains intact—or rather, one eye socket, empty, burning with an unholy light. It’s this that Dean is fixated on: the burning socket triggers a recollection, a talking skull with fiery eyes in an animated movie he watched as a kid. It’s only a fleeting memory, disappearing quickly into the nauseating terror crawling through his stomach. He shakes it off, struggles to concentrate, to put aside his sudden fear.

“That’s no zombie,” Sam says in a low voice, at the same time that James yells out a warning: “Wight! It’s a wight! Don’t let it touch you!”

“Wight? Wait for what?” Dean quips, voice shaky, but hurriedly backs away from the thing. He stumbles over his feet. 

Sam finally takes a shot at it; all that does is add a few holes. Sam shoots again. The thing doesn’t stop. 

_Christ._

Steeling himself with a deep, ragged breath, Dean aims, pulls the trigger. The shot hits spectacularly, far better than he should be capable of right now, and the head explodes. The corpse crumbles to the ground. They wait, he and Sam, with guns still at the ready.

It doesn’t move. Dean exhales loudly in surprise and relief. The shakiness and the nausea disappear as suddenly as they came.

Sam steps up next to him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. The hand lands heavily, squeezes, stays a bit too long; Sam must have been affected by this thing, too, somehow.

“Nice shot, Dean.”

“There’s still one zombie left, you know,” James says before they can collect themselves. He walks up to the last zombie, touches it with a short sword that came from fucking nowhere, and the creature drops to the pavement in a motionless heap. James walks—practically saunters—over to them.

“Nice work on the wight,” James says. He smiles at Dean as if Dean hadn’t almost pissed himself during the fight.

“Uh, thanks. Lucky shot, I guess.” If he can avoid letting on how terrifying that thing was, all the better. “The fuck is a wight, anyway?”

“Obviously, as you discovered, they’re harder to kill than your run-of-the-mill zombie. They drain life energy, and once you’ve been marked by one, you turn into one of them when you die,” James says, wiping his sword fastidiously with a rag before returning both to the satchel. Does nothing even phase this guy?

“Well, that’s lovely. Can we get the hell out of here now?” Dean says. He throws his hands up as he walks toward the Impala. The brothers quickly stow their belongings in the trunk and James keeps his bag with him as he did before. 

“I still want to know what that light was,” Sam says as they take their seats. 

“In a minute. We need to figure out where the fuck we’re going. I was thinking Bobby’s, but if they’re tracking us and there's more coming after us, I don’t want to lead ‘em there,” Dean says.

The fog has started to thin out but it left a thick layer of condensation on the car, and Dean blasts the air. Then again, they don’t really want to to be sitting around waiting for the defrost to work if more zombies show up. He snaps the wipers on and the window squeaks as he furiously rolls it down, and Sam’s barely started cranking his when Dean throws Baby into reverse. A _thump_ jerks the car as a wheel rolls over one of the corpses. Typical. He puts the car in drive. Rolls back over the corpse. Something that sounds suspiciously like a snicker comes from Sam’s direction.

“Not. One. Word,” Dean threatens him. He pulls the car out onto the highway, operating on autopilot. The fog bank ends abruptly, proving how unnatural it is—a big dirty sugar cube relegated to the area immediately surrounding the motel. Red and purple streak the sky behind them. It's almost sunrise, and here they are, on the run with only a few measly hours of sleep under their belts. Just like old times.

He puts the radio on, and a punk song filters throughout the car. 

Sam chuckles, and starts singing; as soon as Dean recognizes the Misfits, he groans and flips the radio back off. Fucking songs about zombies. His hands grip the steering wheel hard enough that his knuckles go white. And although he can just feel the fucker smirking, Sam wisely holds his tongue. 

“Someone explain the light show, please,” Dean says. 

“That was me.” James confirms. He says nothing further, just stares out of the window. This area is dotted with wetlands in between wooded groves, and much more natural fog lies close to the marshy ground along the sides of the road. The scenery passes by in a blur.

“You want to elaborate?” Dean asks, exasperated after the heavy silence.

“It’s an ability of mine?” James says. At the odd tone in his voice, Dean glances in the rearview mirror. James’s face is all scrunched up like he’s surprised he has to explain, but he continues: ”I, um—how can I put this. I channel divine energy. It’s very damaging to low-level undead creatures like the zombies, but it’s not as effective on tougher things like the wight. They can partially resist it. I can draw you a diagram, if you like.”

“Uh, no. No, we’re good. Just, a little warning next time would be nice.” Dean’s still looking in the rearview mirror, so he catches James rolling his eyes. “There a problem, Jimbo?”

“You’re being overly dramatic. It’s a standard spell.”

“Not to us, it isn’t.”

“And my name is C— _James._ ”

Dean snorts. Sam stares out his window, pointedly ignoring the bickering, but that’s fine. He'd probably be on the douchebag wizard’s side.

James turns further toward his own window, muttering something about uncivilized buffoons. 

A throbbing starts up in Dean’s temple. 

James, oblivious to Dean’s incoming tension headache, rummages around in his tiny, creepy-ass bag, pulls out a full-size pillow, and squishes it between the window and the back of the seat. He quickly dozes off with his legs tucked up under the dog. 

The throbbing intensifies and is soon joined by a tic in Dean’s jaw.

Almost against his will, Dean sneaks looks at James through the rearview mirror as he drives. It’s a little creepy, sure, but this is hardly the same person they rescued last night, what with all the mood swings. So he’s gotta keep an eye on him. Or something like that. 

Dean heaves a sigh.

He feels… Adrift. Doesn’t know where to go, what to do. The lack of control he has over this situation makes him want to run screaming in the other direction. But this is too damn important and he can’t afford to fall apart now.

Or ever, really. He can’t _ever_ afford to fall apart, because everything is important when your life is as fucked up as his. His and Sam’s. But fuck, it’s exhausting. 

“So, where we headed?” Sam’s studiously nonchalant question breaks Dean out of his reverie with a jolt. Dean schools his expression into something hopefully less pensive. Fake it ‘til you make it and all that.

“Bobby has that cabin in the northwoods, right? I figure that’s gotta be remote enough.” He rubs a hand over the stubble on his chin. “Assuming I remember how to get there.”

“If you don’t, I do. We’re west of Madison now, so... It’s gotta be, what, at least a five-hour drive, even for you. Want me to call him, have him meet us? We could use his help, and his library. Maybe he has some spare healing potions he can bring along.”

“Yeah, probably a good idea. Was thinking about that last night, actually.”

Sam nods and pulls out his phone. Dean lets the murmur of Sam’s voice wash over him, not really paying attention to the one-sided conversation with Bobby, because there’s a gas station coming into view up ahead, and he suddenly realizes he has to pee. 

 

James and Sam break apart from what looks like an intense discussion as soon as Sam sees Dean walk out of the little shop. Sam leans against the car and drums his fingers along the roof. James has the back door open, but hasn’t gotten out.

The driver’s side door protests with a loud screech when Dean jerks it open.

“Conspiring against me?” He tosses a bag over the car toward Sam, who snatches it with a practiced ease. “Sorry, Sammy, they’re fresh out of kale smoothies.”

“Very funny. James, you want any of this crap? We’ve got, uh, Funyuns, Combos, and, ah… licorice? Are you five, Dean? I get to choose snacks next time.”

“There’s sandwiches in this one,” Dean says. He tosses the other bag into the back seat. There’s a crinkly _thwack_ and it bounces off of James’s back. The man turns a sharp look at Dean. Jeez, who pissed in his fucking Cheerios? Nevertheless, James pokes through the bag and settles on a sandwich. Sam chooses the veggie wrap thing, just like Dean thought he might. 

“You’re welcome,” Dean says. He fusses about at the back of the car. James and Sam start another hushed conversation. Through the rear windshield Dean watches the back of James’s head bob in emphasis. The man runs a hand through his hair, disordering it even more, and makes several animated gestures. Sam frowns, then laughs. Apparently the dude can be perfectly civil to Sam, and just has something against Dean. He probably said something he shouldn't have. Was it the wizard jokes? It was probably the wizard jokes. Well, the guy’ll just have to get over it, ‘cause they’re stuck working together for the foreseeable future. Dean rouses himself from his stupor to put the gas nozzle back in its cradle.

“Hey, Jamesy, can you toss the ham n’ cheese to the front seat and get the rest of those into the cooler? So, what’d Bobby have to say?” he says.

Sam replies around a mouthful of veggie wrap. “He has a few ideas. Thinks the cabin’s a good start. He’s gonna close up his place and head out early tomorrow. He’s got some materials on necromancy, lucky for us.”

“We could use a lucky break right about now. This thing feels… big.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. So, here’s the other thing. He’s not sure how they tracked us to the motel, but he thinks there’s a possibility it’s like how vampires track through scent. Says we should do a scent-muffling obfuscation spell and make some anti-tracking hex bags. Might work, might not.”

“Okay, I guess that sounds good. We got the stuff for that?” Dean asks. Sam looks down at James. “Ah, yeah. Forgot about the real magic master we have at our disposal.”

Sam, predictably, frowns. James makes no response to the banter, but stares out over the fields.

“Alright, well, let's get out of the open at least, so no one realizes we’re with a wizard,” Dean says.

“There’re some picnic tables back around the side.” Sam points out a small shelter behind some evergreen shrubs on the side of the parking lot, and they head over to it. 

 

James and Sam soon have their heads bent together over the hex bags. Dean pores over the rest of Sam’s notes in between ball tosses to Bones. His brother’s handwriting is as atrocious as his drawing skills, but Dean better be pretty damn good at deciphering it after all this time. 

However, that doesn’t help this list make any more damn sense. Some of these spell components are just plain weird, and there’s only about a third of them that he’s actually heard of before. Then again, he and Sam have never really been big on spellwork. Too expensive. Too much margin for error. They prefer to stick to the easily obtainable and easily usable things like silver, holy water, salt, and guns. And good ol’ physical prowess, of course, so take that, ya fuckin’ wizard. James, of course, looks up at him just then, all squinty-eyes and furrowed brow. He’s sure he didn’t say that aloud… Dean’s eyes slide away from James’s gaze. 

“How’d the old man come up with these recipes, anyway?” Dean asks. “Agrimony? Valerian root? Balm of Gilead,” Dean mouths the word out, exaggerating the pronunciation. “Huh. He’s even got bamboo on this list.” 

Sam shrugs, still bent over the materials on the picnic table.

“Bobby said that if they’re following us with a hex, all of these ingredients should help to break it, even if we don’t know the exact curse.” Sam looks up just as Dean tosses the tennis ball back to the dog. “If you’re just going to mess around, you might as well start putting together the smudge.”

“Yeah, alright.” 

Smudges aren’t that hard to make, being one of the few magic things where Dean has basic competency, but James watches him with his intense stare, and his fingers fumble over the herb bundle. The cotton ribbon slips free from the bundle of fumitory, sagebrush, and juniper more than once, and he swears under his breath.

James seems like he wants to say something, but Sam distracts him with a hex bag, and Dean manages to get the rest of the herbs into the shallow silver bowl without further incident.

"Ready to get this show on the road, guys.”

The powdered mixture catches fire with an unnatural _fwoom!_ when he drops the match into the bowl. The smell of sandalwood snaps through the air; a memory flashes through him of Bobby’s library back when he was a boy. Bobby was trying to teach him some simple spells, but Dean kept fucking it up. Bobby was patient with him up until Dean got frustrated and said that magic was for weaklings. He thinks his Mom might’ve said something like that, just not as judgmental, but Bobby wasn’t having any of it. Dean shoves the memory away. Before the flame dies down, he alights the herb bundle and waves it over himself. The pungent smoke clings to him and tickles his nose. He hands the bundle over to Sam, who then passes it to James.

“We, ah, we gotta hold hands while I recite this. Okay, so… ‘Cleanse, Protect, Conceal’.” Dean pronounces the incantation with care. Speaking Celestial is not one of his strong suits. He repeats the line two more times and drops their hands quickly; Sam’s kinda sweaty and James—James is just weird and stares too much.

“Hex bags ready? Alright, daylight’s wasting.”


	5. Try to Disappear

_The world is great and wide_  
_But wherever you go you know_ _  
I'm a step behind_

Sullen silence from James in combination with Sam’s snores are the name of the game on the drive north. The scenery gives Dean plenty to focus on, never mind that he’s been dragged through Wisconsin more times than he cares to count. He enjoys Fall. Something about the change of seasons resonates deep within him. It must have something to do with being a midwestern boy at heart. That must come from Bobby’s influence, though, because they never did spend much time in Kansas. It must’ve been too painful for Mom.

The landscape transitions from hills to bluffs to farmland to forests of just-turning yellow leaves interspersed with tall pines trimmed of all their lower branches. The road winds around hills and valleys and occasionally cuts right through the earth, when the engineers couldn’t be bothered to go around. Sunlight glares off the pale yellow stone of these wounds. Dean takes little glances into the backseat from time to time; James watches the scenery avidly; he hums softly when a hawk soars by, he cranes his neck to look down as they cross the Wisconsin River. He’s so utterly enraptured, he completely ignores Dean’s two attempts to make conversation. It’s almost like the guy’s never been on a road trip before; at least one passenger has to be awake and engage with the driver. It’s just common courtesy.

For someone who supposedly travels almost as much as they do, James’s attention to the passing view also seems a little strange. Dean reconsiders and rejects yesterday’s shower theory that the guy’s a lying liar that lies; just because you travel a lot doesn’t mean you’ve been everywhere. Hell, he and Sam haven’t even been to Mexico or Canada. So, maybe James just hasn’t been to Wisconsin before. It’s not much, but it’s also not too terrible to look at. So he gets that the guy might want to take in the sights while he can.

Later, after all the scenery has started to blend together and last night’s lack of sleep catches up with him, he reasons that maybe James just doesn’t want to talk, period. Guy’s been through a lot of shit: captured on the job, almost died, was rescued (and basically interrogated) by them. And then there was the whole ambush at the motel in the middle of the night thing. He does seem to get grumpy when he doesn’t get enough sleep. Heh. He’s pretty funny-looking with his bedhead, too. So he should cut him some slack, let him stare out the window in peace.

But after they stop again for gas and bathroom breaks, and Dean comes back to the car only to catch James and Sam deep in another conversation that stops immediately when he appears and glowers at them, he reasons that James just doesn’t want to talk to _him_. And while that shouldn’t matter—they don’t have to be friends or whatever to get this job done—somehow it still does. 

It takes a little while to work out why he’s bothered, but when it comes to him, his death grip on the wheel tightens until his knuckles go white. Because, his brain tells him, it means he doesn't matter. It means that he’s lacking. He’s not good enough, or skilled enough, or smart enough, or interesting enough. All he’s really got going for him are his looks and his brawn. Sam’s the interesting one, the smart one, the one with more skills. The one with more in common with James. That’s why they have these secret conversations.

In fact, Sam and James could probably finish this job just fine without him. If he jumped out of the car right now, they probably wouldn’t even notice. Okay, well, they’d notice when the car crashed, and he’d never do that to Baby, but that’s besides the point. Anyway. He has no idea why he cares what James thinks of him, but he does. And the worst part is despite knowing that’s all wrong and that he’s just being neurotic, he believes it. He believes these things down to his core. He’s so fucking twisted he might snap.

Sam interrupts Dean’s morose brooding when he clears his throat loudly and turns down the radio.

“So, I’ve been checking Madison area sources for the past hour or so. Nobody within sixty miles has noticed anything weird enough to be related.” He turns in the seat, cranes his neck to look in the backseat. “James, they led you to Freeport, right? Any idea what they mighta been up to? I checked the news down there, too: no grave disturbances, no reported thefts of occult objects. Nothing missing from that Mason lodge, and nothing else really strange. And that’s going back a few weeks.”

James turns his attention from the window and messes with his phone.

“It appears that I’ve only lost two days. Given that I was only a day or so behind them when I arrived in Freeport, that leads me to believe that they were in town for no more than three days.”

“Huh,” Sam says. He peers back down at the laptop. “What were they up to? And why these towns? I don’t see the connection between Freeport and Dodgeville and Cobb.”

“Could be a personal connection,” Dean says. He hadn’t meant to say anything. He wants to shut up, to keep his stupid thoughts to himself, but his mouth moves on its own. “One of ‘em’s from there, or they have family in the area. Or an enemy. Or maybe we just haven’t figured out where in town their secret base is.”

“That could be it. At the very least, there’s something going on that I’m not seeing. Anyway, I’m almost at my data limit. We’ll just have to wait for Bobby, then maybe we can figure out something more useful.” Sam shuts the laptop and tucks it back into his bag. He leans back as far as he can against the bench seat, stretches, and sighs. Dean turns the music back up, but at a lower volume than before. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel.

“We gonna stop for supplies, or just head straight to the cabin?” Sam asks after a few moments. 

Dean mulls it over. “Depends. You want gas station food, or grocery store food? ‘Cos if you wanna drive over to Spooner or Hayward, be my guest. I’ve done enough driving for the day. But, uh, _if_ you happened to go to a grocery store, and _if_ you happened to get some decent fixins’, it looks like good weather for grilling up some burgers.”

“Uh-huh. Well, let’s do that. There’ll be more variety at a grocery store. Might as well see what needs to be restocked at the cabin, too.”

It’s a good idea, and it makes sense, but Dean darts a look over at his brother. Something in his tone suggests that Sam’s going to come back to the cabin with a few containers of lettuce and kale and veggie burgers. He’d better bring Dean-appropriate food, too. In fact, Dean’s going to make a fucking list. He should find out what James eats. (It’s probably Sam-food.)

 

Just about an hour later they pull onto the bumpy gravel drive leading up to the cabin. Dean grinds his teeth as the car lurches and bounces over potholes. When the cabin comes into view in a small clearing, Dean brings the car to a stop and they all but tumble out. There’s a lot of old-man moaning and groaning, but the dog dashes around like an overexcited puppy.

It’s been years since he’s been here, but it’s just as quaint and homey as he remembers. Dappled sunlight filters down through the colorful tree canopy. The tree cover keeps the cabin hidden from satellites and planes, but means solar power isn’t an option. That was always kind of a sore spot with Bobby. The cabin itself is small-ish and square, wood, with a fading brick-red paint job and white trim. The porch is wide and wraps around one side, bare of furniture or decoration. The windows are boarded up, which means Bobby hasn’t been up here in a good while, either. 

With three people the prep goes much more quickly than they’re used to, and they’ve got the power and the water pump up in no time. Which means there’s running water. Hot running water. And thus, hot showers. But first, Dean makes a grocery list for Sam. He underlines ‘pie’ three times. 

Once Sam is gone, Dean and James finish up inside. They pull off dust covers and clean and hook up the few appliances they will conceivably need over the next couple of days—or however long they’re going to be holed up in this place. Dean sends James into Bobby’s room and takes care of the other one, the one he used to share with Sam when they were kids. The room has changed since then—gone are the twin beds and the two little dressers and the trunk of sports and camping stuff. The last time they’d stayed here as kids, he was probably fifteen. Sam’s bed, the one that used to be against the interior wall, had had dinosaurs and astronomy posters adorning the wall above it. Dean’s side used to have posters of wrestlers and cars, and chicks on cars. He chuckles at the memory of how disdainful he’d been of Sam’s nerdy stuff, but how he’d secretly read his brother’s science books. 

He and Sam have been here since then, of course. He’s seen the room in its current state before: one full-size bed tucked under the window, an adult-size dresser in the corner. A writing desk and several full bookcases line the wall where Sam’s bed used to be. Framed landscapes hang at intervals.

He tackles the closet, on the hunt for clean sheets, pillows, and a quilt. He finds those easily, but lingers over a banker’s box he discovers in the corner. It contains thin, browned papers. Awards, certifications of excellence. Report cards. Even some of the posters that used to be on the walls. There’s a painting that he recognizes, but he can’t recall whether it was his or Sam’s. Figures the old man would hang onto all of this stuff.

James calls to him from the living room. Dean sets everything back in the box. He fits the cover back in place, and pushes it back into the past.

 

In the time it takes Dean to bring in the fancy dog food, James has collapsed on the couch, curled into a ball, and drifted into a doze.

“You wanna grab one of the beds for a nap or something, Mr. Comatose?” There’s no response from James. He could let the guy get his beauty sleep, or… Dean wonders if Bobby still has that ancient coffee maker. He digs through the cupboards and finds it buried behind a pile of old tupperware.

“You want some coffee? There’s a sealed tin here, so it’s probably still good. ‘Good’ being a relative term,” Dean amends.

James grunts something unintelligible. 

“It’s alive!” Dean putters around in the kitchen while the coffee brews. He fires off a terse text to Sam with a request for sugar, because the stuff Bobby has is clumpy and gross and who knows how old, and there may have been something crawling around in there, but he’s not looking again to check.

When the coffee’s ready, he bangs a cup on the coffee table in front of James. It slops over the side, but it’s worth it when James jolts awake and blinks like an owl. He spies the coffee and makes grabby hands toward it, but Dean waves him away from the mug and takes a seat at the other end of the couch.

“Trust me, there’s no hurry. That old thing in the kitchen makes it too hot. Also, it’s probably pretty terrible. ”

“It’s caffeinated, though, correct?”  
“Yep. It’s got that going for it.”

“I’ll take my chances, thank you.” James takes a sip and makes a face. “On second thought, do you have any cream?”

Dean stares at him. “Cream? At a cabin, in the middle of nowhere, that’s been uninhabited for god knows how many months? Yeah, let me just go find a cow for you.”

“I was joking, Dean, unclench a little.”

A small, lopsided smile breaks out over James’s face. So he _does_ have a sense of humor.

“Oh, ha-ha, very funny,” Dean says.

“Hmm. At least one of us is, then.”

“Yeah, well, your face is the, uh, funny thing…” Dean groans and hides behind his hand as soon as the line escapes his mouth. It’s one thing to make stupid comebacks to Sam, who expects them and even encourages them with his blatant disapproval, but another thing entirely to prove his idiocy to the new guy on a regular basis like this.

James lets loose a begrudging snort of laughter. “You know, you’re incredibly unfunny.”

“Don’t worry, Jimmy, you’re just as bad. Can’t even tell you’re fucking joking.”

James chuckles, then takes sip of coffee. He makes another face.

“This _is_ really bad, though. And it’s _James_.”

“Yeah.” Dean spins his mug around on the table. He taps his fingers against the handle a few times. The bright yellow mug has the Wonder Woman logo emblazoned on one side. He can’t imagine Bobby buying this thing. The old man must have developed a taste for novelty thrift store mugs in the past few years.

“Sam should be bringing some better coffee back with him. And sugar.” Dean taps the mug again. “And he probably won’t get cream, but he might have milk.”

James nods. 

The conversation lapses as they sip coffee, and it’s not long before Dean feels the pressure to fill the silence.

“Why do you hate me so much?” The question bursts from him without permission, and he feels his face turn hot in response.

“What do you mean? I certainly don’t hate you.” James glowers at him. This must be his ‘offended’ look. It’s very similar to his other looks.

Dean waves a hand. “Y’know. The ride up here you had all these little secret conversations with Sam…” He trails off. Why the hell did he think _this_ was an appropriate topic of conversation? But James’s expression clears.

“You seemed to dislike it whenever we discussed magic, so I thought it’d be better not to have those conversations around you.”

“That’s it? You were just talking about spells and shit?”

“Yes, Dean, that’s it.”

“Huh.” He leans back into the couch and takes another sip of coffee.

“May I ask my own intrusive question?”

“Fire away, James.”

“Why do _you_ hate _magic_?”

It’s on the tip of Dean’s tongue to deny it; he’s already thinking of a dozen possible stories, some even containing parts of the truth. But why should he have to lie? There’s nothing _wrong_ with how he feels. He places his mug on the table and straightens up. He looks James dead in the eye.

“Because magic is powerful and dangerous. It’s unpredictable and hard to control, and it corrupts.” _I don’t understand it. It scares me. It killed Mom._ But even as he repeats these familiar thoughts to himself, he realizes he doesn’t feel as strongly as he used to; something has changed.

Dean could be imagining it, but he thinks that James kind of shrinks in on himself as he looks away. “I’m sorry you feel that way. With proper study and discipline, it can be quite useful. I’ve spent most of my life studying magic. I’m quite accomplished, and extremely careful.”

“Well, I guess we’re just gonna have to agree to disagree, because while I’m sure you are as you say you are, who’s to say Joe Schmoe knows what the hell he’s doing, that he’s not going to put people in danger while he meddles with things he doesn’t understand?”

James sighs. “I guess there’s no way to be sure.”

“And that’s why I don’t like magic.”

 

The caffeine must have leeched out of the tin as the coffee aged, because Dean wakes up with a jerk when the front door bangs shut. He twists around on the sofa to see Sam wrestle an armful of grocery bags through the door. James struggles awake next to him and scrubs at his face. 

“Let me guess,” Sam says, “no grilling out happening?” 

“What? Why? Wait, what time is it?”

“Little after four. Did you clean the grill?”

“Oh. No, we didn’t get around to it. Don’t give me that look, we worked our asses off cleaning this shithole. I can make burgers in a frying pan, too, you know.”

Sam doesn’t reply, but dumps the bags on what passes for the kitchen counter. He spots the coffee pot; better nip that right in the bud.

“Coffee’s not worth it. I was going to toss what’s left, but I didn’t want to poison the local flora.”

Sam ignores him and fumbles around in the cupboard for another mug and pulls out one emblazoned with ‘World’s Greatest Dad’. He fills the cup and adds a dollop of something amber-colored. 

“The fuck is that? Some flavor thing?” Dean asks. 

“It’s agave nectar. It’s low glycemic index, so your blood sugar won’t spike like it would with refined sugar.”

“It’s _what_ nectar? Jesus christ.” How are they even related? He watches while Sam takes a drink, and when his brother doesn’t react with revulsion, Dean carries his mug into the kitchen, sets it on the counter, and picks up the bottle of sweetener. He squints at it. He turns it upside down and watches it pool. Kinda looks like a cross between honey and molasses.

“So I just put a little bit in, and that makes this sludge drinkable?”

Sam shrugs.

His nap hadn’t helped any, so what the hell. Dean refills his cup, pours in a little bit of the weird stuff, stirs it vigorously, then takes a sip.

“Huh.” He points at Sam. “It’s still not good, though.”

“Dean, nothing can make five-year-old budget coffee _good_.”

James wanders into the kitchen and comes up to the counter. “Agave nectar is much better with tea,” he says, but helps himself to a refill.

After regaining some energy, Dean cooks up some burger patties on the little stove in an old iron skillet. Pan frying is okay in a pinch, but he wished he’d remembered to clean the grill. He watches James take a large bite and make an appreciative noise; Dean takes that to mean that the pretzel buns were probably a good call, and he wolfs down his own meal now that it’s passed the test.

James scarfs down about half of his before he stops to breathe. “These are really very good. Much better than what we had yesterday.”

Dean’s ears tinge pink under the praise. “Ah, it’s nothing. As long as you season the meat correctly and don’t overcook the patties, they’ll turn out good. But, uh, thanks, man. Glad ya like it.”

From somewhere behind them, a snort of laughter gets covered up by a very fake cough. Dean turns and glares at Sam, who’s eating while leaning against the counter. Because he’s a mature adult, goddamn it, he flips Sam the bird.

Bobby probably could have managed to make the drive up today and arrived in time for food, but Dean has to admit that it’s real nice to have even a few hours of downtime. Just sitting down to relax is a luxury they don’t get that often these days, so he refuses to feel guilty when he turns the TV on and puts his feet up on the coffee table. By some miracle, he manages to find a station that plays _Dr. Sexy_ up in this wilderness. 

James, still seated at the other end of the couch, has a book in hand, a weighty tome probably about advanced magic. But Dean notices the increasing time in between page turns. Eventually, with a little sigh, James tucks the book away. He crosses his arms and stares at the TV sullenly, a little crease in his brow.

“What is this garbage, and why is it so hard to ignore?” he asks. 

Dean rubs his hands together and smiles. “Let me fill you in, Jimmy.”

 

He wakes up the next morning when someone starts banging around in the kitchen at far too early an hour. He remembers being exhausted, and that he tried to keep himself awake through the _Dr. Sexy_ marathon. It was a failure; he only remembers two episodes. The fact that he’s still dressed in yesterday’s clothes attests to the fact that he’d also failed at going to bed. He wiggles his toes. At least he’d taken his boots off. 

Dean tosses aside the blanket that’s bunched up around him, but pauses mid-fling and rubs the material through his fingers. This is the same blanket he’d woken up with yesterday.

He looks into the kitchen expecting to see Sam making granola or some shit, but Sam is nowhere in sight. Instead, James putters around by the stove. When he turns aside, he notices Dean watching him over the back of the couch and smiles.

“Good morning, Dean. I’m making tea, would you like a cup? Sam threw out the rest of the coffee.”

“Tea’s fine,” Dean grumbles. He stands and stretches. “How long was I out?”

James shrugs. “I went into the other room shortly after you fell asleep, but I didn’t look at the time. I apologize for that, by the way; I wasn’t sure if you wanted the bed since you had the cot the other night.”

Dean waves him off and stumbles into the kitchen. There’s a plate of sausage and somewhat runny eggs next to the pan on the stove, and James scoots it toward Dean.

“I already ate my helping,” James says. Dean spies James’s empty plate in the sink and picks up his own with enthusiasm. He’s less enthusiastic about the tea, but he needs caffeine.

“You know where the blanket came from?” Dean asks. He has a mouth full of eggs, though, so James just looks at him blankly until Dean swallows and tries again. “The blanket. It yours?”

“It is. You seem to have a habit of falling asleep without one.”

“Yeah, well, _you’re_ a habit.” Dean piles his fork up again. The eggs could use some cheese and salt, but the sausage is pure perfection. His cheeks puff out around his forkful.

James chuckles. “You remind me of my brother.”

“Oh? Handsome and charming?”

“Mmm. I was thinking more along the lines of ‘mannerless boor, makes bad jokes’.”

“Ouch.”

“My own poor attempt at humor aside, you’re not really that alike.” The smile turns wistful. “My brother was… a difficult person, by turns protective and a bully. He swung from one extreme to another with alacrity. Actually, that describes most of my family perfectly.”

“Oh?” This is the first time that James has talked about himself beyond what they’d pried out of him.

James turns away and busies himself with the dishes. It’s hard to hear him over the rush of water, so Dean shuffles closer. “—from a long line of clerics who serve in prominent positions within the Church, so you can probably imagine the disappointment that followed the announcement of my career choice. In effect, it was the last straw for my mother. I haven’t been in contact with any of my family since I left the Church.”

“Damn.” Dean fidgets with his mug of tea and stares out the window. “I get it, though. My family is more _Mommie_ _Dearest_ than _Leave it to Beaver_ , too. My Mom’s parents, man… ”

Perched against the counter as he is, he’s in the perfect position to spy Sam on the deck, coming up to the door. He’s a little disappointed, but mostly relieved the conversation’s over before he has to contribute.

“Sam’s back. He’s probably gonna want us to hit the books, so let’s get the rest of this washed up.”

“Of course, Dean.”

 

The rest of the day passes in a research-induced blur. There really isn’t much else to do until Bobby shows up, and as Sam reminds Dean on several occasions, this cult isn’t going to go away on its own, so they might as well tackle the case while they wait.

By the time four o’clock rolls around, the uneasy feeling that Dean’s been fighting all afternoon comes to the forefront. He pushes the laptop away and corrals Sam in the kitchen, away from James.

“So, uh, have you heard from Bobby at all?”

Sam shakes his head. “Nope. He’s, what, at least two hours overdue? He should’ve left this morning.”

“Have you tried calling him? He didn’t answer me earlier.”

“Yeah, ‘bout an hour ago. I’ll try him again.” Sam pulls his phone out of his pants pocket and goes into his bedroom.

Dean leans against the kitchen counter and tries not to let his imagination take control. Despite that, James must sense that something’s up, because he comes into the kitchen and parks himself next to Dean. Dean stares straight ahead, but he can see James darting looks at him from his peripheral vision. Thankfully, the guy doesn’t say anything, just stands there. They’re close enough that he can feel warmth radiating from James’s arm. 

Sam comes back into the main part of the cabin a few minutes later. He looks… his face is pinched, and his knuckles white around his phone. So whatever news he has, it’s nothing good.

“I can’t get Bobby on his cell or any of his landlines, so Jody’s going to check on him.”

“Okay. That’s good—Jody’s good.” Dean drums his fingers along the kitchen counter, but stops under the weight of James’s gaze.

They wait in tense silence for what feels like hours, with only the incessant ticking of the wall clock proving that time moves at all. When Sam’s phone rings, he jumps and nearly drops it. 

“Jody! Yeah, Dean’s here with me… Okay… Seriously? Oh, no. Shit… Alright, thanks. Keep us updated.” Dean watches Sam’s expression carefully; after hanging up, his brother swallows, his mouth working for a few seconds before he manages to clear his throat enough to speak.

“Bobby was in an accident outside Sioux Falls. He’s in surgery now.”


	6. No Time to Cry

_Everything will be alright  
_ _Everything will turn out fine_

Dean rubs a hand over his face for what must be the thousandth time since Jody’s phone call. He checks his phone, but only an hour has passed since then, and only a few minutes since the last time he checked. He slaps it down on the countertop and stalks away to one of the bedrooms, only to stomp back into the kitchen a minute later and pick up the phone. He glares at the screen, which is devoid of texts, emails, or missed calls from the person he _wants_ to hear from.

James smiles at him weakly. At least he’s not trying to pat him on the arm any more. That ended when Dean nearly bit his hand off.

Sam paces from one end of the living room to the other.

“We should be there,” Sam says for the thousandth time. 

Dean answers the same way he has for the past hour: “I know, Sammy. I know. But Jody’s there, and she’ll take good care of him.”

A few minutes pass. Dean does his stomp-to-bedroom-stomp-to-kitchen routine again. James tries to be supportive. Sam paces.

“She should just give him a healing potion,” Dean says for the thousandth time.

“Dean, they won’t let her in there while they’re operating, and I don’t think she has any. Whatever Bobby had was totaled along with his car,” Sam says. “And it wouldn’t even work, anyway. You know they’re only good against certain types of damage.”

“Shit. You’re right.” Dean stomps to the fridge and yanks open the door. He pulls out a beer, stares at it, and shoves it back in the fridge. His stomach is roiling too much to even drink.

Sam checks his phone charge, and then unplugs it. Hippie nerd that he is, he removes the charger from the outlet, too. Dean would laugh if he was capable of it right now. As it is, he just watches his brother with a scowl.

“Why’d he have such a late start, anyway?” Sam asks.

“Do I look like I know?” Dean regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth. Sam’s face hardens, and he wanders off into one of the bedrooms. James shoots a dark look at Dean and follows Sam.

Great. Just great.

Dean flops down onto the sofa and stares at the ceiling until the beams warp and blend together. He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes until stars replace the beams. He pulls out his phone and stares at the screen. It hasn’t changed: the notification for two missed calls and a text mocks him. He’d taken one look at the sender and knew it’d be pointless to look at the message.

In the other room, a phone chimes. He shoots off the couch in record time and dashes to the bedroom. Sam is perched on the end of the bed, James looking on.

“Uh-huh. Okay.” Sam’s quiet for a long while, and Dean starts to feel antsy until his brother makes some more noncommittal noises. “Alright… Yeah… Thanks, Jody. I’ll let him know.”

Sam hangs up and takes a deep breath.

“You gonna tell me what she said, or do I gotta call her myself?”

“Dude, relax. He’s fine. Make that mostly fine; he’s in recovery. Guess he’s still loopy from the anesthetic, so Jody’s hanging out until they move him to a regular room. So, uh, his—his car was crushed by a truck. It took them a while to cut him out of the wreck. His legs are pretty bad but he’s out of the woods for now. He’s looking at some serious rehab, at least.”

“Let me reiterate: somebody give him a damn healing potion.”

“We’ve been over this, Dean. You know that won’t work.”

He knows. But that doesn’t make it any less unfair. 

“Okay, but what about healing spells? You said James knows some pretty advanced stuff,” Dean says. 

“I do have a spell that may be able to help, based on the type and amount of damage your friend has sustained,” James says. He pauses, as if unsure whether to continue. “You seem… very close to this Bobby.”

“He practically raised us,” Sam says. “Our dad died when we were little, and our mom took us on the road with her. When she was on big jobs she’d either drop us off at our grandparents’ place, or at Bobby’s.”

“Bobby was by far the less sucky option,” Dean says. “Gramps Campbell was such a dickhead—”

“So here’s the thing,” Sam says, cutting Dean off before he can even get started on his rant. It’s one he’s heard a million times before. “How do we know the necromancers weren’t responsible? I mean, what are the chances that this is just a coincidence?”

“We read Bobby in on James’s case, and within a day he nearly dies in a crash? Yeah, some coincidence.” Dean rolls his eyes.

“Right, Dean, that’s what I’m getting at. But how could they have found him so quickly? How were they spying on us?”

James nods. “And given whatever leak the necromancers were able to exploit, are we certain we want to go to Bobby when he’s vulnerable? We don’t know if the obfuscation spells worked. If they did not, and the necromancers know where we are, we’ll be leading them straight to him.”

“Those were heavy duty hex bags, and that spell seemed pretty solid,” Sam muses. “I think it’s more likely we’ll be walking into a trap.”

Dean rubs at his face. “How can we _not_ go to him, even if it is a trap? It’s _Bobby_ , man!” 

“No. No, you’re right. We have to. He would do it for us.”

“Shit.” Dean spins around and pounds his hand on the door frame. “Fuck!”

Silence stretches throughout the cabin as they consider the options. Is it even possible that—that what, the bad guys have the kind of magic that can spy on them even with the hex bags? How do you even counteract that? If it wasn’t magic, and if their phones were jacked or something like that, then they can just replace their phones. Although as far as he can tell, they’ve never even seen the necromancers, just their minions. Don’t you have to get pretty close to hack someone’s phone or perform spying spells on them? They haven’t even been near anyone else other than random strangers at gas stations.

Shit. This is going nowhere.

“Man, I dunno. We don’t have much to work with here, especially if it was magic. In case it wasn’t, we might want to ditch the phones and get some burners.”

There’s a collective pause for a few moments.

“You think our phones were compromised?” James finally asks, brows furrowed.

Dean scrubs at his face. “Honestly, I don’t know what to think. Just wanna cover the bases.” 

“It’s too late to make a run back up to Hayward tonight, and I don’t think Edgewater even has a gas station,” Sam says.

“Well, what about Birchwood? It’s not too far down the lake. I can swing down there.”

“Okay, you do that. The sooner, the better.”

“Yup. Leaving now.” Dean grabs his jacket and shrugs into it on his way out the door.

 

When Dean gets back to the cabin, toting yet another mocking smiley-face plastic bag, Sam has attempted to make dinner. What looks to be a very well-done burger surrounded by a pile of lettuce—sorry, _mixed greens_ —awaits him on a plate on the coffee table.

“What the hell is this crap? Shoulda sent you to get the phones.” He rummages around in the bag and tosses one of them—an old-school flip phone, no Bluetooth or wifi or anything—to Sam, who quickly disappears into the bedroom he’s claimed as his own. Dean plops down on the sofa and inspects Sam’s culinary efforts. Truth be told, he’s so fucking hungry he’ll even eat the salad.

“Where’s Jimmy?” he calls out to Sam, who subsequently appears in the bedroom doorway with the phone to his ear and an imperious finger telling Dean to hold his horses.

“Whatever,” Dean says to himself. 

The burger’s long gone and he’s picking through the good parts of the salad when Sam reemerges. 

“Jody’s fine so far, but she’s going to take some extra precautions now. The truck was reported stolen, so she’s also going to try and open up a case. Pretty sure you have to be alive to steal a truck and crash it into someone, so maybe she’ll get lucky and catch a lead.”

“Okay. How’s Bobby doin’?”

“He’s awake, but heavily sedated. There was some damage to his lower spine.” Sam pauses and looks down at the floor before meeting Dean’s eyes again. “It’s too soon to tell, but there’s some concern he might not be able to walk again.”

Dean’s stomach twists, and suddenly his appetite is gone. A metallic noise startles him, and he dimly realizes that he’s dropped his fork on the floor. He retrieves it and drops it on the coffee table.

“Sam, we have to go down there.”

“And if James was right, and they’re still able to track us? What if—”

“Sammy, I’m positive this isn’t a coincidence. I mean, c’mon, the truck was stolen! This is our fault no matter how you look at it. They got to him because we got sloppy. The longer he stays stuck in that hospital, the more vulnerable he is. Jody’s awesome, but fuck, we don’t even know what we’re up against, and she’s just one person.”

Sam sighs heavily and runs a hand through his hair; it falls back into place perfectly. “You might be right. From what Jody told me, it’s looking less and less like an accident. And we could use his help. But, Dean, I insist on doing this without letting the whole world know. So we’re going in with a plan for minimal exposure, and we’re sticking to it.”

“Yeah, of course, Sammy. Of course. We’ll sit down, make a plan, and leave first thing in the morning.”

 

When James reappears, it’s with leaves in his hair and a tuckered out dog. What’s more, he’s _smiling_. It’s a good look for him. Maybe it’s just being around the Winchesters that makes him all grumpy. Figures that he and Sam are kinda downers. 

As soon as the man sheds his jacket, he disappears into one of the bedrooms and shuts the door. Dean darts a look over to Sam.

“Spell prep, remember?” Sam says

“Ah. Right. Wizard stuff.”

Sam rolls his eyes, then leans back over his task. 

The holy trinity of consecrated iron, silver, and salt don’t work on the corporeal undead, and they need something better than plain ol’ bullets to give them an edge. While Dean was gone, James had shown Sam how to enchant special bullets. Sam’s got the materials and James’s spell scroll spread out on the table, and he and Dean sit at the small coffee table inscribing their ammo with Bane Undead runes. They have no idea how well these’ll work, but it was as good as an idea as any.

Killing one zombie isn’t that difficult, actually; it was real easy to drop that one in the cemetery with just one swing from a crowbar, and when they were ambushed at the hotel, most of them went down with one clean headshot. Problem is, zombies don’t travel alone, and they might be mindless, but they are being controlled. When you’ve got a pack of them coming after you, even just defending yourself gets a lot trickier. Zombies are kind of bottom-rung, all told. The wight that they faced at the motel was trouble. That took, what, at least four or five good shots between him and Sam? And who knows what other abominations the necromancers are going to create. The only real advantage they have right now is knowing that they’ll be fighting undead creatures, and the time to prepare themselves. 

Dean gets so engrossed in the task he doesn’t even notice that James has reemerged from the bedroom and is peering over Dean’s shoulder while he works. Dean’s just putting the finishing touches on a batch, carefully notching the runes on the last bullet, when James leans in close.

“You’re very good at that,” he observes from right next to Dean’s ear. 

“Jesus!” Dean just about jumps a foot in the air.

“No, I’ve told you, it’s James,” he says, oblivious to or uncaring of the fact Dean very nearly had a heart attack.

Dean takes a deep breath and tilts his head a fraction away from James. The man’s lips quirk, and his eyes hold a spark of amusement that Dean could have easily missed if he wasn’t so close to him.

“Sorry, if that was a joke you should let me know. Y’know, so I know when to laugh.”

James’s little smile spreads into a grin.

Dean suddenly remembers his brother is there, too. He looks across the table to Sam, but really wishes he hadn’t; Sam’s darting looks between him and James, his eyebrows nearly to his hairline. 

Dean clears his throat.

“So, uh, got your Magic Missiles ready to go, Jimmy?”

“Why do you ask, Dean? Do you want a hands-on demonstration?”

“A hands—uh, wait, what? You—What?” Dean’s eyes snap shut, and he shakes his head; he waves his hand dismissively as he shoots up from the couch. “Never mind. I’m not gonna ask.”

He stomps into the bedroom he’s suddenly decided to share with Sam, slams the door in the face of James’s and Sam’s giggles that are _far_ too loud, and collapses face-first on the bed.

 

The tension of a long day has taken its toll, and Dean falls asleep despite his worries over Bobby. His sleep is restless and disturbed, and he wakes several times in the night. Near dawn he slips into a strange dream; he can’t ever remember having lucid dreams before, but he’s sure that this is one. He’s himself, with all his life experience and memories, but in his fourteen-year-old body, and standing over the corpse of a werewolf. Mom is there. She hugs him close and pats his hair.

It’s not a memory, because he killed his first monster when he was sixteen, and she never hugged him like this then. They’d had to go patch up the person they saved, and whether Mary had been inclined or not, there hadn’t been time to comfort Dean. 

But now, Mary comforts him. Her grip is strong, almost too strong, and Dean tries not to struggle, afraid to break the contact. Afraid that if he does, he’ll wake.

“I wanted so much more for you,” she says in a voice that almost sounds like his own. “When you were younger, you loved animals. I used to think you’d grow up to make a fine vet. But here we are. You’ll make a fine hunter, too.”

_I’m too soft-hearted for that. And I’m not strong enough for this._

Mom smiles and steps back and bursts into flame. Dean is her, and he’s on fire, watching his younger self watch him burn.

 

“Dean, wake the fuck up!”

Dean flails, shaking his brother’s hand off his shoulder, and shoots up in bed. He blinks blearily; sunlight streams in the from the south-facing window, bathing the room in warm tones. He had a strange dream. Something about himself, and Mom… Whatever it was, it fades quickly, leaving him feeling vaguely unsettled, even though the room is cheery and warm. Sam’s expression immediately douses that warmth, and Dean’s stomach turns.

“Bobby?”

“Bobby’s fine. Jody called earlier. This is worse. I got onto the neighbor’s internet and—it’s started again.” 

“What’s ‘it’? Oh, crap—the necromancers? They started raising more zombies?” Dean asks. 

“Yeah, but on a much bigger scale. A Madison cemetery reported graves dug up overnight. Maybe thirty graves total.”

Dean just stares at Sam; Sam jerks his head, waiting for a response.

“Shit,” Dean says.

Sam nods. He puffs out a breath, then says the thing Dean’s afraid he’d say: “I don’t think we can afford to detour to Sioux Falls.”

It sucks. It sucks and it’s unfair, but Sam’s right. Bobby deserves better than this, than what they handed him. He deserves—hell, he deserves a lot of things. What he damn well _doesn’t_ deserve is to be laid up in a hospital, unable to walk because of him and Sam, and possibly hunted by angry necromancers. The least they coulda done was get him healed up, and now that’s off the table. So he’s gonna sit there, exposed and vulnerable, probably in pain, while they go haring off to Madison. Because that’s what they do. They kill evil sons of bitches. They save people.

Just not the people they know and care about.

He stumbles out to the living area intent on finding coffee, still wearing the clothes he fell asleep in. Which, now that he thinks about it, were the clothes he fell asleep in the other night, too. He surreptitiously sniffs himself. Yeah, he really needs a shower _and_ clean clothes.

The next time he stumbles out of the bedroom, freshly washed and dressed, he finds a plate of eggs and sausage waiting for him on the coffee table, along with a cup of tea, which he pretends is worse than it really is for appearance’s sake. Sam falls for it, and makes faces at all of his disparaging comments. James is subdued and largely ignores Dean’s one-sided banter, and hardly says a word as they pack their belongings and close up the cabin as quickly as possible.

By the time they pull away down the bumpy gravel driveway, tension fills the car fit to bursting. And despite his record-breaking six hours of sleep, Dean’s exhausted. He just wants to go back to bed and pretend this whole thing is a monumentally detailed nightmare. Barring that, he wants to go straight to Bobby. Heading southeast instead of southwest is one of the hardest things he’s done in a long time, and goes against every instinct he has even though he knows that Sam’s right. Bobby’s alive and Jody’s watching over him, so they best they can do now is find those fucking necromancers and make them pay for hurting Bobby. Oh, and are they ever going to _pay_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the biggest problems I had with this story was the existence of healing potions and healing spells. Why the hell wouldn't you use them all the time? Papercut? Cure Light! Broken arm? Healing potion!
> 
> Spells at least have a cooldown of sorts; you prepare your spells ahead of time, and only have so many per day. Sometimes you might use them for non-healing purposes like in chapter 1, when Sam used his healing spells to kill some zombies when he no longer had his shotgun.
> 
> Potions are basically just bottled up healing spells in liquid form, but I'm kind of using the World of Warcraft model where they are alchemically derived from herbs and stuff. That means they could be exorbitantly expensive to make and the ingredients are rare. I also completely made up that healing potions only work on magically-caused wounds. *Shrug*


	7. This Ready Flesh

_It stumbles through the dark_

Dean drives with little regard for anything save getting to Madison before something _else_ awful happens, and the Impala rockets down the highway. The sooner they can clear this mess up and send James on his way, the sooner they can get to Bobby. To that end, Sam recruits Jody to go through Bobby’s things to hopefully help them figure out a destination, although since Jody isn’t exactly a hunter, her research is kind of spotty and all over the place. Most of Bobby’s books were lost in the wreck, but Jody managed to recover a few things from the scene; being friends with the local sheriff has to have _some_ perks, after all.

Sam’s tense one-sided phone conversation flows through the car from the passenger seat, and he jots notes down seemingly haphazardly as Jody feeds him information. About thirty minutes out from Madison, the two of them have managed to compile a list of likely hideouts for two necromancers and thirty-some shambling zombies. The good news is also the bad news: they have a list of eight places to check out, and most likely have a very limited time frame in which to do it, because no one raises _thirty zombies_ and then doesn’t use them, right?

With James’s help, Sam plots out the abandoned warehouses, factories, and other industrial areas on a city map, and Dean navigates between points. They spend almost the entire day chasing down Jody’s leads with no hits, not even a hint of necromancers running loose in town. They’re irritable and grumpy, and barely speaking to one another by the time they turn in for the night somewhere near the university campus in a completely average motel room featuring two queens and a pull-out, but no strange decor. 

Dean’s last in line for the shower, which doesn’t help his mood any. But more than that, and more than the fruitless running around all day, he just doesn’t like this city’s downtown, squished between two lakes as it is— _it’s an isthmus, Dean,_ Sam had reminded him in that annoying, overeducated tone of his—because it just makes it that much harder to get out of town when all hell breaks loose. With _thirty zombies_ and two necromancers running loose, you don’t want to be stuck on a narrow strip of land between two lakes, okay?

However.

There’s still hot water even after Sam and James had their turns, and that’s practically a miracle. He breathes in the steam and makes a conscious effort to let go of some of his irritability. It even works a little bit; he feels his shoulders relaxing under the pounding spray. Maybe they should spring for average motels more often.

When he gets back into the room proper, James is playing with Bones and Sam is on the phone.

“That Jody?” Dean asks. Sam nods. “She got anything else for us yet?”

“Hold on,” Sam says, and after some fumbling with unfamiliar buttons, puts Jody on speaker. Bobby’s voice comes through the line instead.

“Alright, listen up. Looks like you boys aren’t having any luck with finding the zombies, so let’s try a different tack—”

“Bobby! Oh, man, is it good to hear from you!” Dean says, and even Sam looks a little startled.

“How you doing, Bobby?” Sam asks.

“He’s doing okay. Couldn’t get him to just relax and recover,” Jody’s voice comes through the speaker, tinny and distant, but yet still brimming with sarcasm. Bobby must’ve swiped the phone from her. Dean can just picture her throwing her hands up in frustration, but also the little smile that’s probably playing about her lips. “He insists on helping you boys, despite the doctor’s orders.”

“—Alright, that’s enough of that. Let’s get back to business. There’s this one book on occult groups in Wisconsin, and it claims that a secret organization at the University had hidden chambers below Bascom Hall back in the early 1900’s. Now, this is all unsubstantiated, but the rumors say that secret organization was interested in and investigated the occult. I’m talking John Dee and Edward Kelley level occult, here. So I’d start there.”

Dean recalls an old book of Bobby’s. “Wait, wasn’t John Dee an alchemist or something like that?”

Sam starts, and side-eyes him.

“What? I read.”

“Yeah, but that’s not all they did, ya idjit.” At Bobby’s gruff tone, Dean’s ears redden. He wishes he remembered more of that book. “They practiced celestial magic, communed with angels, held seances and conducted investigations into spirit communication. Which is a form of necromancy, genius.”

“Alright, alright, fine. But what do a pair of renaissance spiritualists who were into angels and a secret organization have to do with our zombie-raising necromantic cult?”

“I don’t know,” Bobby says, dripping sarcasm. “That’s why you two dolts are going to the Hall to investigate.”

“Actually, it’s us two dolts, a dog, and a fucking wizard.” Dean can’t keep a grin from spreading over his face.

“You teamed up with a wizard?”

“Dean—” Sam purses his lips and glares at him, then rolls his eyes in defeat.

“Hey, I’m a joy to be around.”

James leans toward the phone. “I’m a cleric, actually. Dean apparently has a thing against wizards.”

“Bobby, meet Jimmy. Jimbo, Bobby,” Dean says, glossing over the wizard comment. James looks startled at the introduction, but murmurs a greeting anyway.

Dean misses this, the bantering and good-natured bickering between the three of them—well, they’re back up to four, now; he has to blink back a sudden prickliness in his eyes. He and Sam came damn near to losing the closest thing to a father they’ve ever had, and they aren’t out of the woods yet.

 

They do some recon after a quick dinner, but there’s been no activity from their missing zombies, which is kind of odd. Maybe the necromancers were just waiting for dark to fall before getting up to trouble. Bascom Hall looms up ahead of them, a brightly illuminated beacon at the top of a hill. Might as well just shine a giant spotlight right on them, for all the cover they’ll have once they leave the tree-lined sidewalk.

“Ugh.” Dean stops and holds his side.

“Too many brats?” 

“Shut it, Sammy. This is the land of brats and beer.”

“Three brats may have been excessive, Dean.” James’s disembodied voice floats over from his position on the other side of Sam. 

“Whatever,” Dean mutters under his breath. He hitches the duffle bag back into position as he moves forward again.

Grass rustles beneath their feet as they cut away from the sidewalk, and the sharp tang of recently mown lawn hits his nose with every step. The only other sounds are crickets and distant traffic. The air is clean and crisp, and it’s not cold, but there’s a slight bite to the night. No creepy fog, no black altars covered in entrails, no rotting graveyard smell. And so far, no undead creatures, either. So that’s a plus.

But even with the normalcy and the peacefulness of their immediate surroundings, he’s fraught with nerves, not excess brats. Despite all their efforts, they’re still critically lacking in intel. Even if they do find this secret chamber, what’s that gonna tell them, that a hundred years ago some dudes liked to dress up in robes and chant over crystal balls? Some sort of connection between this and their case is just too unlikely. Meanwhile, there’s a herd of zombies loose somewhere in the city and Bobby’s still stuck in that hospital with only Jody for protection, and she can’t be there 24/7, not with her job. This is so pointless. It’s gotta be a wild goose chase. Why was Bobby so sure this was a good lead, anyway?

They’re just cresting the top of the slope where Bascom Hall sits, passing a stern Lincoln statue in a small courtyard, when Sam stops dead in his tracks, the dog right on his heels. He flings his arms out in front of Dean and James, then points up toward the building.

“I’ll be damned,” Dean says softly. They shuffle back behind the statue as quietly as they can manage.

There’s a small figure in front of a side door, pacing and smoking up a storm. It’s too far to see features clearly, thanks to a dark hood, but he sees a pale face and dark hair. Normally, wearing a hoodie and smoking wouldn’t be too out of place on a university campus. But this person—a woman, he realizes—has a cloud of semi-formless black smoke trailing behind her, and she’s also talking to a bowl. In the otherwise quiet night, the voice travels well and the one-sided conversation carries over to them clearly.

“What do you mean, you can’t find them again?”

The woman paces, pulls a deep drag from her smoke. She stops for a moment, then starts again. Her whole body seethes with tightly reined-in fury, from the hunch of her shoulders to the way she strangles her cigarette.

“That’s unacceptable! I don’t care what spells they did. A bunch of hunters should be easy for you, especially ones that know jack shit about magic.”

Huh. Clearly, by some miracle, Bobby’s smoke spell thing actually worked.

“Just. Stay. There. They’ll show up to investigate sooner or later—”

“They were at the cemetery this whole time?” Sam hisses at Dean, but James shushes them.

“—They’re goody-goodies, they can’t ignore a zombie pack that big. Just do your job and don’t contact me again until they’re taken care of… Yes, because I’ll do _worse_ than kill you. Oh, and, if the Aasimar is with them, you know what to do with it… And you’d better keep those zombies ready just in case. We can always get more later.”

The woman takes one last pull on her cigarette, then tosses it to the ground.

“For fuck’s sake,” she says, but it looks like she’s talking to herself this time. She yanks open the door and disappears into the building. The smoke thing follows her.

“What’s an Aasimar?” Dean asks, but James talks over him.

“There’s something familiar about that woman,” James says as soon as the door falls shut behind her. He frowns, a crease etched between his brows. 

“Think she had a hand in your capture?” Sam asks. His brother practically hums with energy. Dean knows the feeling. After days of being in the dark, of reacting instead of acting, they might actually have the jump on these guys. They need to get in there, find her, and neutralize her. Should probably ask her a few things first, too, _maybe_. Dean steps out from behind the statue, but then James keeps talking, and it stops Dean cold.

“I—yes? But it’s not that. In the condition I was in, I never clearly saw or heard the people that captured me. But her voice, the way she talks—” He pauses, huffs out a breath. The crease deepens. “I think maybe I know her. I don’t know how, or from where. It’s just a feeling.”

“So you’re telling me someone in your life could be involved with this? Someone you—who _knows_ you? Well, that’s just great. What else aren’t you telling us?”

James jerks his head back at Dean’s tone. Eyes wide, he stares at Dean open-mouthed until Sam interrupts.

“Dean, what the hell? You’re being unreasonable.” Sam shoves him out from behind the statue, then turns him toward the building, pushing him away from James. “He can’t know what he doesn’t know, you dick.”

Dean drops his shoulder, dislodges Sam’s hand, and turns.

“I don’t like this. I don’t like how closed-mouthed he is. I don’t like how we keep finding out important shit after the fact.”

“ _What_ ‘important shit’ do you ‘keep’ finding out ‘after’ the ‘fact?’ Do you want my entire life history? I can assure you, it is not relevant to this situation.” James spits the words out at Dean and actually makes air quotes as he goes. It’d be hilarious if he wasn’t so pissed off.

“Well, _something_ from your life is relevant to this situation. And we need to know what the fuck it is.”

Sam gets between them and pries them apart. Dean realizes that somewhere along the line, he and James had closed in, face-to-face and snarling at each other. Surprised, he loses the tension in his posture, and the force Sam needed to restrain him is too much. Dean stumbles back a few steps before righting himself.

“Seriously, knock it off. You two have some crap to work out, but it can wait. We need to catch up to her.” Sam trots off, his long gait carrying him toward the side door quickly. 

Dean throws one last challenging look at James, but the other man is staring down at the ground, shoulders slumped. He doesn’t look angry anymore. He looks… sad. A hot prickle breaks out over Dean’s face as he struggles with his emotions. James is deliberately hiding things from them, and they’re about to walk into a potentially dangerous situation; he doesn’t deserve Dean’s pity. He probably doesn’t even want it. But maybe he really doesn’t know anything… maybe Dean went too far. Before he can even decide if he wants to apologize, it’s too late, and James breaks into a half-jog to catch up to Sam. Dean follows in sullen silence.

 

The building is old, and looks to have been renovated several times over the past hundred and fifty years or so. Security lights illuminate the narrow halls, and they follow the woman down a series of passageways and stairwells that lead them into the bowels of the building. 

Dean brings up the rear, trudging along. This is all too easy. It was too easy to pinpoint this place as a possible lead, and it was too easy to just happen to run into that woman, and it’s just too easy to follow her along her labyrinthine path. His face settles into a grimace that feels as familiar as breathing, and he’s about a hairsbreadth from telling Sam he’s got a bad feeling about this, when the train stops and he jerks back to the present, narrowly avoiding slamming into James’s back.

Sam’s got his arm raised as he peeks around a corner. Dean’s not sure what sublevel basement they’re in, but it looks like it was used for storage at one time. Tall metal cabinets rise to the ceiling, some still filled with file boxes. Dust tickles the back of his throat, but it’s the chanting that sends a shiver down his spine.

Sam pulls back, turns to face them with his lips compressed into a thin line.

“There’s a room up ahead. The woman’s there along with four other people. At least I’m pretty sure they’re people. That shadow thing is in there, too. The hallway dead ends at the room, so I’m not sure there’s another way in there. We could maybe take them by surprise.”

“Sammy, I dunno, man. They just happened to leave the door open?”

Sam shrugs, and they both turn to James as the tie-breaker.

James doesn’t say anything for a long moment, then: “It seems like the woman is in charge? We could wait until she’s alone again, that would give us better odds. If she was one of the ones who captured me, then she’s quite powerful.”

“It’s not a bad idea, but it might be a mistake to let them finish whatever they’re doing,” Sam says. 

“Speaking of, anyone have any idea what they’re doing? I don’t even know what language that is,” Dean says.

“I think it’s Abyssal, but I can’t tell what they’re saying,” James says.

“Okay, sure. If you don’t know the language, how do you know what it is?”

“The same way you’d know someone was speaking Spanish, even if you didn’t understand it.”

Guess he has a point. Could stand to lose the attitude, though.

“Alright, so,” Dean says, “our options are take them all by surprise and interrupt the ritual thing, or wait until she’s alone. I don’t like our odds with a room full of bad guys, but on the other hand, we have no idea when or if she’ll even be alone any time soon. And we don’t know what that ritual is. Could be bad news.”

“It is absolutely ‘bad news’,” James says in his flat voice, the one Dean now knows means he’s feeling snippy. Dean rolls his eyes. “So I don’t believe we have a choice. Let me put some protective spells on us.” 

James reaches over, grips Dean’s shoulder tightly, and mutters something. A tingle passes through Dean, and he blinks rapidly. He pokes at his arm; the skin has a slightly off color, and feels a little plasticky, but otherwise the protection spell isn’t too weird. Not any weirder than being healed, at least.

James finishes Sam’s protection and steps away. “I can’t imagine that she’ll be very forthcoming, but it seems like she’s the one in charge, and this is our best chance to get information.”

“Wait, what? You want to capture and interrogate her? Dude, we don’t have anywhere to hold her. If this is their base, we don’t exactly want to stay here. Our best bet is just to go in swinging and take care of them all at once,” Dean says.

“I don’t think I like what you mean by ‘taking care’ of them,” James says. The crease is back in his brow. “And I don’t much like the idea of attacking without provocation.”

‘Without provocation—!” Dean sputters. He looks at Sam. “Back me up, here.” 

“As much as I hate to say it, James, Dean is right about their intentions. They’ve come after us several times if you include the attack on Bobby, and I can’t imagine that was anything other than an attempt to get at us. At _you_.”

“You heard her out there. She’s not going to sit down over tea with you, man. These are _necromancers_ ,” Dean says. He never took James for a bleeding heart. Dude’s gonna get them killed.

“Forgive me, but I was under the impression that you hunted creatures,” James says, mouth set in a mulish pout better suited to an eight-year-old. “These are still _people_ , and people can be reasoned with, unlike monsters. All I am asking is that we give them a chance. If that doesn’t work, then we fight.”

Dean rolls his eyes and leans back against the wall. “Sam?”

Sam shrugs. “Who knows, maybe James has some mad diplomacy skills. I don’t think it’s the best idea, but if we go in there prepared for a fight, we’ll have a better chance once the shit hits the fan. And let's face it, he’s got a point: we don’t kill people.”

Except for rogue fire wizards, but Dean really doesn’t want to bring that up at a time like this. _That_ asshole definitely deserved it, though, and for what they did to Bobby, _these_ assholes definitely deserve it, too. But he’s clearly outnumbered, so he shrugs and crosses his arms.

James still doesn’t look happy, but he’ll have to deal with it, because it’s the best they can do.

Sam kneels before the dog and speaks to him quietly, then readies his pistol. Dean tucks his gun in his waistband, and notices that James has his sword out. So, looks like he’s not entirely an idiot. It’s a small consolation.

“Yippee-ki-yay, motherfuckers,” Dean says under his breath as the group steps out around the corner.


	8. Born From Fire

_I dwell on that dream  
_ _I don't want that to fade_

The cultists weren’t expecting them to just waltz into the room, that much is obvious. In surprise or fear, one of the underlings steps outside of the summoning circle. Mouth agape, he looks down at the foot that dared go outside the protective sigil. A collective gasp echoes throughout the room, and the other three turn horror-stricken faces on him.

“What are you idiots doing? The ritual can’t be interrupted!” The woman recovers from her surprise quickly, but not quickly enough. A deep rumble rolls through the room, and the offending cultist crumples into a heap on the floor without even uttering a sound.

Disoriented, Dean bumps into the wall and braces himself against it until the movement subsides. 

The woman looks at them—not at him or Sam, Dean realizes, but only at James, her eyes black with fury in her pale face. She flips her hood back off her head and… holy shit. Her eyes are actually black. It’s not just his imagination or a trick of the light. Her eyes are black and the reflection of the candles is like hellfire in their cold depths.

“What are you doing here,” she asks in a clipped voice.

“I have the feeling that I know you from somewhere,” James says. “So I wanted to give you the chance to explain yourself before we take you into custody.”

Her laugh covers Dean’s incredulous groan.

“Take me into custody? You and what army—this rag-tag bunch of mouth-breathers? C’mon, now, Clarence. We both know you don’t have a chance against the might of the Abyss.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean observes James react to the strange nickname. He looks confused, with his brow all scrunched up and his mouth pursed. It doesn’t _seem_ like he recognizes the woman, even though she clearly knows him. She must be some kind of master of disguise or something. He darts a glance at Sam, who frowns back at him.

“That’s why I’m attempting to appeal to your sense of reason,” James says. “Whatever your goal, it can’t be worth all this.”

“You have no idea what I’m willing to do to achieve my goal, and you have _no idea_ how long I’ve been working for this. Things have gone too far for me to back down now.”

“It’s not too late,” James insists.

She makes a face at him, and something clicks. It triggers a memory, just a fleeting glimpse of an interaction that lasted no more than a few seconds, but… 

“The old woman at the diner!” Dean says. “That was you. I knew it! I knew that old broad was creepy.”

She smirks at him. “Points to that guy for not being as big of an idiot as he seems.”

“Oh, that does it. Lady, you’re going down.”

“Touchy, aren’t we?”

“You come after our family, we spare no expense in coming after you,” Sam says.

Her brow crinkles up, and she might be about to say something, but she thinks better of it. She makes a curt, slashing gesture, then backs away from the summoning circle. Dark light streams out from the altar, surrounding everything in the immediate vicinity.

The three remaining underlings, slow to remove themselves from the circle, start to glow and shake violently, their screams muted as reddish-gold light streams from them to the large figurine in the center of the altar. And their faces—Dean realizes with horror that the life-force is being sucked right out of them, pulled to the figurine. But then, suddenly, it’s over and the bodies fall to the ground. Dean snaps his mouth shut as he tries to tear his eyes away from the mess. He can’t make sense of what’s happening, but he knows it’s just _wrong_ on so many levels, and he’s drawn to it against his will. 

As he stares at the corpses in horrified fascination, shouting breaks out—the woman yells something in an old, guttural language. He can’t understand it, but he knows—he can _feel_ it in the way his bones ache right down to the marrow—that _this is bad_. Light and fire burst into being over one of the corpses. His body physically reacts before his mind even registers what’s going on—a clammy sweat breaks out and all his muscles tense and cramp. It’s like he’s being squeezed in a giant fist. He’s seen this before, somehow… Out of the corner of his eye, he sees James move up next to him and Sam, an arm outstretched.

“Quick—” James says, but it’s too late. Far too late. Because Dean knows what this is. He stares, hypnotized, at the burning flesh rearranging itself on the corpse like lava flowing backwards. Whatever else James says is lost. Something hot bubbles in Dean’s throat, claws at his chest to get out. The fire coalesces around a dark shadowy form, a human-like outline, shrouding it in flames. It reaches out to him and before he realizes it, he breathes out one small, commonplace word, desperate and disbelieving. Maybe it’s even a prayer; a plea that this isn’t happening, not again. 

“Mom?”

_it’s not mom it’s not mom it’s not mom it can’t be mom mom is dead it’s not mom_

He can hear Sam breathing heavily next to him—panicking—as he fires at the flaming figure. Dean doesn’t act. The dog lunges at the shadow creature over in the corner of the room; he watches Bones dance circles around his quarry, darting in quick, effective attacks just like Sam trained him to do. He hears James on the far side of Sam, his voice strangely high pitched as he shouts the casting of another spell. Dean doesn’t act, because he’s been cleaved apart and some calm, detached version of Dean is aware of and watching that all unfold in slow motion while the other Dean, this Dean, _himself_ , is rooted in place, as his heart races and his hands tremble and all the noise in the room is turned down real low and drowned out by the buzzing. He wants to be the other Dean. But he can’t be. All he can do is—

_smoke so much smoke can’t breathe too much smoke too much_

—raise his gun but his arm is shaky, too shaky. He’s not even sure he’s aiming properly but he pulls the trigger anyway—

_it’s not mom can’t breathe too much smoke just calm down breathe_

_calm down_

_breathe_

_it. is. not. mom._

—and the figure jerks back between their shots, his and Sam’s. Dean’s pretty sure he barely winged it because he might be freaking out a little bit, maybe, and he’s really pretty sure that Sam’s the one being useful. The buzzing in his brain eases to a low murmur as he somehow snaps back into himself. Everything in the room also snaps into place, and time becomes normal. Too fast—everything is moving too fucking _fast_.

The other side of the room lights up, draws his attention. White light explodes from James’s hands and streaks toward the woman, and she stumbles to one knee. When she raises her head again, a rivulet of blood pours from her mouth, but she sneers and reaches out toward James and makes a tight fist around something she clasps in her hand. James drops to his knees, surrounded in dark fire that bubbles along his skin. He screams. Or maybe Dean is screaming.

“James!” Sam says, but stops because—

The woman yells hoarsely, arms outstretched. The human corpses on the ground lurch and buckle. The smell of rot explodes into the room and Dean gags, can hear Sam coughing roughly next to him. When the tears clear from his eyes, they’re surrounded by ghouls, and—

_Fuck_.

The cinder ghoul is right in front of him and the panic he barely managed to suppress before wells up once more. The thing reaches out to him again, but the appendage is no longer hand-shaped. Instead, a funnel of smoky fire sweeps toward him. Shit, shit, shit. Not this again. He tries to clamp his jaw shut, but the needle-like tang of decay that permeates the room sticks in his nose and clogs up his throat, and he struggles against the need to vomit. As soon as the choking cough he can’t suppress escapes his lips, the thing is there, forcing itself into him, the grime of ash and charcoal thick on his tongue, coating his throat, smothering him—

_burning burning I’m burning can’t breathe_

_it’s not mom mom is dead_

—and he tries to gather his will, to fight it off, cough it out but he fails, he can’t do it—

_can’t breathe_

—and then, suddenly, it’s gone from him. He coughs and gags, spits up blackened junk as his legs buckle and he falls. Curled on the floor, Dean sucks in deep, greedy breaths. It’s too much for his ash-coated lungs, and he coughs and spits again. Soot coats the frothy phlegm that spatters on the floor. Stars dance in his vision, and from far away he hears Sam calling to him, and the dog growling and snarling. Sam shoots and the shot echoes oddly in Dean’s still ringing ears, but it doesn’t seem to do anything to the cinder ghoul. It wavers and splits in two in his blurry, tear-obstructed vision, but Dean fires desperately at it anyway from the floor. They’re all going to die here, but he’s taking that goddamn fucking abomination with him if it’s the last thing he does.

It stumbles back from the shot. 

_Why won’t it die?_ He thinks he says it aloud, but there’s a hand on his shoulder, gripping his jacket sleeve, and Sam is hauling him upright. Or trying to, so Dean gets his legs under him and grabs at Sam to stabilize himself just in time to be blinded by light bursting through the room. Dean blinks, tears pricking his eyes. He knows that light. He saw it just the other day.

It came from James, James who’s still down on his knees, swaying drunkenly, bloody and battered, his hoodie torn and partly hanging off him. His face is pale and bruised, a sick yellow cast prominent. James is dying, too. There might be a chance in hell that Sam’ll make it out of here in one piece, and maybe the dog’ll survive. But Dean himself is sure as hell dying and James doesn’t look much better. It’s too bad, really, because James is kind of a good guy to have on your team. If Dean hadn’t tried to rip him a new one outside, they might have been on the way to being friends. Of course the guy proves his innocence just as they’re all about to die...

James’s spell fades as the morose thoughts flit through Dean’s struggling brain. The ghouls drop into lifeless heaps of rotting flesh, and like a crushed mushroom they poof into gassy green smoke. The cinder ghoul flares up into embers, and it’s gone. But James, in the midst of the green gas and oblivious to how badass he just was, falls forward, coughing. He clutches his midsection, and blood oozes out between his splayed fingers. Between them, Sam wheezes. Bones trots over to Sam’s side, the shadowy thing he’d been fighting lies in a twisted mess on the floor in the far corner.

For the barest fraction of a moment, labored breathing and the hissing of gas are the only sounds in the room. The peace is broken by the woman.

“Well, this was a surprise. You’re not supposed to be this tough,” she says. She’s bent over, supporting herself with her hands on her knees, but she doesn’t look anywhere as bad as Dean feels. In fact, she doesn’t look any worse than fucking _winded_. “I’m not a fan of foreplay, so what do you say we wrap this up?”

She’s angry. He can see it in her eyes and the hardness of her face, but her voice is even, almost conversational. She’s pissed, but she knows she’s still going to win. They’re just inconveniencing her temporarily. And Dean knows as plain as day that they aren’t walking out of here. Alive, at least. Undead, possibly. And probably lurching, not walking. He wants to be angrier, to use that anger to fight back, but he’s just so tired. Collapsing in a heap on the floor sounds nice right about now. He just wants for everything to disappear. Instead, he sways on his feet and watches, waits for an opening, anything.

She wipes the blood from her lips. It’s tacky and half-dried and smears across her chin in the wake of her hand, and it’s not in the least bit funny, but Dean chuckles. He has no idea why. Maybe it’s because he has nothing else left. She smiles tightly, ignoring him in favor of looking directly at James. She lifts a hand and points at James; Dean’s heart thuds painfully in his chest. “Goodbye, Clarence.”

Dark light streams from her and rushes around James, and at first he bows under it. Then, fighting it off, he grits his teeth, glaring at the woman. He struggles to stand, and eventually does, but he wavers and then staggers into Sam, who bumps into Dean. Blood leaks from James’s nose, and a thin trail dribbles from his mouth. Dean grabs at him, steadies him with a firm grip on his shoulder. James coughs and spits blood on the floor. He’s almost done for; Dean can feel the fine tremble under his hand. So he slides his hand down to hold James’s arm and gives it a squeeze. It’s an apology, a goodbye, Dean supposes. Even though the moment is here, even though he knew it was coming, it hasn’t quite sunk in. He realizes that he’s still expecting a damn miracle in the face of hellfire and flaming ghouls.

Speaking of flaming ghouls… The woman begins another chant, and the now-familiar fireshow swirls around the room before it hovers over another corpse. _Christ_. Does it never end? Maybe they already died, and this is hell. Her summoning undead creatures over and over again until the end of time.

“Is she making another one of those fucking things?” Sam asks. He’s propping James up, too, but holding onto Dean to keep his balance. The dog cowers behind his legs. They form a little circle. A forlorn, ragged little circle of fail.

James says something, but it’s lost in a gurgle of his own blood.

“What?” Dean says.

The man coughs up another gob of blood. It spills over his lips and slides down his chin, and he brushes it aside distractedly. “I’m sorry,” James says, and Dean’s gaze slips down to James’s hand, and the rod he holds in a tight grip. “For everything.” 

James grips the rod tight and says an incantation—something harsh, in a language Dean doesn’t know—with a voice low and desperate. What is he _doing_ —

A flare of fiery light heralds their impending end. The new cinder ghoul is now fully formed and lurching their way. Except—the closer it gets, the further away it seems. The room blurs: details lose focus, edges become fuzzy. He hears the woman cry out angrily, but it sounds like he’s underwater. As she falls further out of focus, she throws magic at them, but Dean has the odd sensation that they aren’t really physically in that room anymore.

The room does a final jerking shift, and the bottom falls out of Dean’s stomach as they drop into space.


	9. Our Decades in the Sun

_You have the heart of a true friend  
_ _One day we'll meet on that shore again_

Something tickles his face. He’s not sure how long he’s been lying there, wherever he is, or how long he’s been awake, but _something tickles_ is the first clear thought he has. 

His head pounds; tight bands of pressure squeeze his skull, and something sharp pokes him in the belly.

He puts a hand up to his temple, winces. He pulls his hand away and stares at the flakes of dried blood barely visible in the dim light. He opens his mouth to test how much of his face still works; his lips are cracked and dry, and stuck together. He tries to clear his throat, but all he can produce is a raspy groan. The action pulls forth a bout of coughing, and with the searing pain in his lungs and the taste of ash coating his tongue, he remembers.

It’s too much, and he lets the memories float away with his consciousness.

 

The next time Dean comes to, it’s not quite as hellish. It still hurts to breathe, and every cell in his body feels like it’s on fire, being pounded into jelly, or both. But he’s able to make a little more sense of his surroundings, at least. For example, he is aware that he’s lying face-down in a field. Some kind of warmth surrounds him. He can hear rustling and the buzzing of bees and, faintly, some birds. Wherever he is doesn’t sound too terrible, so he cracks open one eye.

The harsh glare of midday sun is a surprise, although it really shouldn’t be. 

He blinks to clear his vision. Tall stalks of prairie grasses and wildflowers wave back and forth in the breeze. A sense of familiarity washes over him, but it’s all wrong. His surroundings are just slightly off from the Midwest that he knows and possibly even loves. He watches a goldenrod bob gently for a minute or so before he even thinks about moving. When he does attempt to move, he stops immediately.

Everything still hurts.

It’s still hard to breathe. 

He’s still lying on that sharp stick or whatever it is, too, so he jams a hand under himself. Instead of rough bark, he encounters smooth, polished wood, and he pulls the implement out. It’s one of James’s wands, he’s sure of it. But what—how? Dean cranes his head around as much as he can. He appears to be alone. He stares at the inscription; the wand is the one for sending messages, of course, and not the useful healing one. 

But when the ‘no service’ indicator blinks mockingly at him from his phone, prized from his pocket with great difficulty, he grips the wand, closes his eyes, and concentrates. 

_James. James, buddy, where are you? What happened? Where’d you send us?_

There’s no reply. Maybe he’s not using it right; he’s not very good with these things, with magic. Maybe you have to know the person well? He tries again, this time pulling up the image of his brother in his mind.

_Sammy, you out there? Please be out there, man._

_Dean! Where are you?_

Thank-fucking-god.

_Face-down in a fucking field somewhere, I dunno._

_Yeah, I have no idea where we got sent. But I’m comin’ to get you. We’ll find you._

Oh, good. Maybe James is with Sam.

 

Time seems to crawl by while he waits. Cold damp started to seep through his layers a while ago, and he’s considering trying to move again when something alerts him. The sound gets louder before he realizes he’s hearing footsteps. The gait is uneven and strange. No, wait. It’s two sets of footsteps. 

He eyes his duffle bag, a few feet away from him.

He still can’t really move. Not enough to defend himself, that’s for sure.

He really hopes it’s Sam.

“Dean!” 

Yeah, that sounds like Sam.

“Oh, thank god,” Sam says as he comes into Dean’s narrow field of vision; all he can see of his brother are his feet and his giant moose legs. The dog trots up beside Sam and whines softly when he sees Dean. Mercifully, Bones doesn’t lick him when he’s down.

“Sammy.” The word is croaked out over the rawness in his throat, but at least his voice is working better than before. 

“When did you start smoking?”

“When a cinder ghoul decided to stuff itself down my lungs and suffocate me. You okay?”

“Says the guy lying on the ground. Yeah, Dean, I’m fine.”

Sam kneels and cradles Dean’s face in his hands. They’re warm and dry on Dean’s clammy skin, and it’s a comforting but also slightly odd thing for Sam to do. Then, as Sam frowns, his jaw tightening, he realizes his brother’s just checking to see how badly hurt he is. Sam quickly shifts his expression into a weak smile.

Dean returns it with a lopsided grin of his own. “Got any aspirin? Had a bad fucking headache all day long.”

Sam stares at him, the crease deepening between his brows, then suddenly his expression clears and he rolls his eyes. “It’s too early for _Die Hard_ _3_ quotes.”

“It’s never too early for _Die Hard_ , and it has to be past noon, wherever we are. So, uh, tell me. Is it serious?”

“Wish you would be. Can you move at all?”

“Yes.” Dean shifts experimentally and groans. “No.”

“That thing did a real number on you. I can give you a small heal, but it won’t fix what’s really wrong. You need to get a full night’s sleep. Being unconscious doesn’t count.”

“Yeah, I know. Lemme have it.”

Sam touches Dean gently, and soon warmth floods through him, flowing into every last nerve ending. His headache disappears, and some of the bodily ache lessens, but there’s a bone-deep weariness that persists. But he can move without every cell screaming in protest, so that’s a start. 

He slowly maneuvers himself and rolls over to stare at the sky for a moment before sitting up. His view tilts, changing from clear blue sky with a few fluffy clouds to overwhelming greenness. It smells like fresh air and nature—grass and flowers and rotting wood—and he doesn’t know of any places that smell like that, not these days. The meadow stretches out around them for what seems like miles, dotted here and there with stands of pines. A dark purple blur on the horizon suggests mountains. No roads, no power lines in sight. They coulda been zapped a hundred thousand years into the past for all he knows.

“Where are we? What the hell did James do to—” He stops short, and dread curdles in his belly, as weighty as a bowling ball. He looks around again. “Where is he?”

Sam just looks at him; his lips compress together and his eyes do that puppy-dog thing that Dean hates so much—it reeks of pity. He doesn’t want pity. He wants his friend back.

Dean inhales a shaky breath and forces it out slowly, evenly. He draws his knees up and slings his arms around them. His fingers twine together almost painfully.

“He’s not here?”

Sam shakes his head. 

Dean turns his head away from Sam, stares off at a distant tree line. The soft drone of insects, the gentle whisper of wind, the golden warmth of the late summer sun do little to soothe the churning sensation that chugs its way through him.

“Friggin’ child. What was he thinking?” Dean says once the lump in his throat abates. Last thing he needs is to lose it in front of his brother.

“He saved our lives, Dean—”

“Yeah, and at what cost? His own life? How can that possibly be worth it?”

Sam shifts around so that he’s sitting instead of kneeling. A knee pops, and it startles a small, humorless chuckle from Dean.

Sam sighs half-heartedly. He picks at a blade of tall grass crushed under his ginormous boots before speaking.

“You’re one to talk, isn’t that usually your shtick?” Dean _hmphs_ , but Sam isn’t done ripping him a new one. “It isn’t like we had a lot of wiggle room back there. We looked at our options and made the only choice that made sense, fully knowing that the odds were against us. James knew that just as well as we did. He practically said as much, and I bet he feels just as responsible for the whole thing as you do.” 

“Yeah, but…” Dean stares at the ground and tries to put his thoughts into some sort of order. “This isn’t really his case anymore. Yeah, I know he asked for our help in the beginning, but as soon as they went after Bobby it became _our_ thing. So the fact that he sacrificed himself for us? I’m really not okay with that, Sammy. Shoulda been the other way ‘round.”

Sam pulls the blade of grass apart, ripping it lengthwise down the center. Dean focuses on it like his life depends on it. “You two are pretty alike in some ways. You think you’re responsible for everything that’s happened since we joined up with him, and I’m willing to put money down that James thinks he’s to blame for everything that’s happened since he was captured. You’re both self-sacrificing, guilt-ridden idiots. You want someone to blame, blame the bad guys.”

Dean chews that over for a minute. He wants to believe Sam, he really does. But he’s spent a lifetime in his own head, and he knows the difference between wanting to believe something and actually believing it. In his heart of hearts, he _knows_ this whole thing is his fault. Had he chosen to do something differently somewhere along the line, a different outcome would have occurred. And he doesn’t get why Sam can’t see that every decision they make affects other people; not only the people they care about, but innocent bystanders as well. The don’t exist in a vacuum and there’s always, _always_ , consequences. They asked Bobby to help them, and he nearly died for it. Might _still_ die for it. James entered their orbit, James got sucked into the, the… utter _suck_ that is their lives, and now look what happened to him. He’s probably dead. _That’s_ why Dean couldn’t reach him with the wand’s spell. And Mom—

And Sam—Sam isn’t as fucked up as Dean is. He’s always been more resilient, able to move past things. Sam doesn’t carry guilt like a weight around his heart like he does. But Sam, who knows him better than anyone, who _knows_ how Dean works, still doesn’t _understand_ how Dean works. Why Dean is Dean. Sam wants him to be more like him, something he can’t be, no matter how often he berates himself. He just can’t shrug off guilt and shame and the goddamn blight on his soul. So Dean pretends. He nods.

He loves his brother, but… Being with Sam, he realizes, is kind of lonely. And it’s exhausting.

 

They walk for what feels like hours before signs of civilization appear, and with it, cell reception. It turns out they’re in fucking Alberta.

A few hitched rides later sees them in Calgary, where they bunker up for the night in a run-down roadside motel just like every other motel they’ve been in over the years. Dean takes in the interior in all its glorious awfulness, and briefly wonders what James’s reaction would be to _this_ room. He’d probably—but James is dead. He immediately shoves all thought of him out of his mind.

All signs point to Dean not sleeping a wink that night, but he must have been far more exhausted than he thought. When he finally stumbles into wakefulness the next morning, drool pooling on his hand, Sam is already out. On a run, according to the terse note left behind. Only Sam would go for a run after nearly dying.

There’s a missed call and a few texts from Bobby, but nothing else. Dean chucks the phone onto the bed.

In the shower, he inhales deeply, breathing in the steam—lungs now working properly, he notes—as he thinks back to the fight. He goes over every detail etched in his mind, but it’s fruitless. There was too much chaos and gore to make sense of anything. But if he could just figure out what was happening before they got sent away, maybe he’d have a clue what happened to James. He can’t decide which is worse: James left behind in the room with that woman (who clearly had it in for him), or James being teleported with them but stuck in the ether, floating in limbo between worlds. Dean shivers, goosebumps popping up on his skin, and he can’t entirely blame it on the steadily cooling water.

Thoughts of James worry at him while he towels off and dresses, while he methodically cleans and reloads his weapons and preps ammo and inventories and straightens the contents of his bag, while he returns Bobby’s call, and while he mindlessly watches what passes for TV in Canada. Thoughts of James gnaw at his brain even as he stares in fascinated horror at a postcard of a bunch of dudes on skis _in speedos_ at the gas station next to the motel, and while he paces in the room, waiting for Sam’s three-hour ‘run’ to be done.

Eventually, he’s unable to ignore the wand sitting in his duffle bag. He pulls it out and runs his hand along the smooth wood. He pictures James—unbidden comes the last time he saw him, bloody and ragged, followed by the first time he saw him… also bloody and ragged. He forces those images out of his mind and deliberately recalls the three of them sitting in the diner that first night, James with his hoodie pulled up, his scruffy face and tired eyes, his hands cradling a cup of coffee while they talked over dinner, never even realizing that one of the necromancers was only a few feet away. Would that thought bother him as much as it bothers Dean? If they’d known then, they could have— _Focus, Dean._

_James. Jim-Jam. Where are you? Are you okay? We need you back. Come back._

Like before, there’s no response. 

Heart leaden, he shoves the wand back in the bag. He pushes it down to the bottom and covers it with clothes.

 

Sam finally returns, shuffling in somewhat guiltily with his hands full of laptop, coffee, and a bag that better be filled with donuts. The dog darts in behind him. Before Dean can even ask, Sam apologizes and hands over one of the steaming cups. 

Dean gulps at it, the coffee not hot enough to scald, but hot enough to jolt him out of his funk after yet another failed spell.

“How was your, uh, _run_?” Dean asks. He waves his hand in a motion meant to encompass the entire sasquatch. Sam’s in regular clothes, and he doesn’t stink, so Dean’s fairly confident in his assessment that Sam was not, in fact, out for a run.

“Thought I could just get back on the horse, but, uh, it turns out I wasn’t really feeling up to it. I got breakfast instead.” Sam plops himself down at the little table and sets the laptop up in a business-like manner. 

“Uh-huh.” Dean’s eyes narrow. He pulls out the other chair and eases himself into it. A full eight (nine? ten?) hours of sleep did him a world of good, but he’s still a little stiff. He’s too old for this. How Mom managed to do this job into her fifties, he’ll never know.

He sits in silence for several minutes, watches while Sam meticulously spreads books and a notebook out on the table and pores over pages of handwritten notes before Dean finally loses patience and snaps shut the laptop cover.

“What the hell’s going on with you? You’re being weird, even for you.”

Sam ignores him and pops the laptop open again.

“So, get this. I think I got the name of that secret organization that Bobby was talking about: the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn—”

“I thought they were based in England. Why would there be a chapter in the States?” Dean says. He looks up from pawing around in the bag—which has betrayed him with muffins—only to see Sam stare at him with raised brows. Dean quirks his right back, challenging.

“Uh, so, it was probably an unofficial branch chapter, or possibly a new organization built by a disgruntled former member. There were plenty of those, heh. Anyway, uh, that was the largest and most well-known group of magic practitioners around that time period. But apparently, you know that already. I still don’t know what the link is between their hermetic and theurgic traditions and this cult full-on raising the dead from their graves, but ceremonial magic uses a hell of a lot of ritual objects for its, uh… its rituals. Maybe they’re still collecting artifacts and relics or, or power sources or who even knows. Clearly, there’s a link somewhere. We just gotta find it.”

“Shounds eashy,” Dean says, mouth full. 

Sam grimaces. “Yeah, right.”

 

They swipe a decrepit old pickup from a truckstop up the road from the motel and take off for the States soon after that. Dean tries not to think of Baby sitting alone and unguarded in that parking ramp in Madison, or Bobby stuck in that hospital with only Jody for protection and company. He really, really tries not to think of James. (He fails at that in spectacular fashion.) He decides that it’s probably better to believe that James is dead instead of floating around in the ether, even though he really doesn’t want James to be dead. 

He says as much to Sam, eventually, after hours of the thought rattling around in his head, hours of trying to make himself believe it. Sam is silent for a good long while after that, and Dean darts sidelong looks at his brother’s stony face in the interim. When Sam finally speaks, Dean heartily wishes he’d kept his mouth shut.

“You and me, Bones… We all ended up in the same place, with all of our stuff,” Sam says. “And James, he… apologized right before we got zapped, like he _knew_ something, Dean. But if he’s out there, we’ll get him back.”

“Okay, you know what? I’m done talking about this. Sorry I ever brought it up.”

Sam’s like an indulgent parent telling their kid that the family pet has died. Breaking the news gently. Pityingly. Well, he imagines that’s what it’s like, at least. Not that they ever had a family pet or an indulgent parent. 

Well, fuck that. James knows a lot of spells. A lot more than Sam knows, that’s for damn sure. He also had all those wands in his bag. He must have cast something that Sam wasn’t familiar with, that’s all. And he just got sent somewhere else, and can’t call or text or answer the Sending or send a fucking postcard because he’s—oh, right. Stuck in the fucking interdimensional limbo. The cell service is even worse there than in the middle of the Canadian wilderness.

He tries again to believe that James being dead is the better alternative. 

He still fails miserably.

 

They maintain a stiff silence between them, but it’s more out of concern and worry than animosity. That is, until the topic of Bobby comes up. Sam wants to head to Sioux Falls. Dean does not, and being protective of Bobby when he’s in the hospital sure as hell does _not_ make Dean an idiot. If anything, Sam’s the fucking idiot if he thinks that just because the cultists left Bobby alone for a few days it means he’s out of the woods. The last thing they should do is drag him back into it by going there and having him dig around the lore more.

“Bobby is the best damn resource we have, Dean. We got no leads! You want to, what, just go back to Madison and hope that necromancer’s just hanging out in the basement of that building waiting for you? Even if she was, you’d just get your ass kicked again!”

Dean slides a sidelong glance over at Sam, whose red face is set mulishly as he stares ahead, down the road.

“There’s always…” Dean clears his throat. Sam isn’t going to like this at all. “There’s Bela.”

If the sputtering noises coming from the passenger seat are any indication, Sam likes that idea even less than Dean thought he would. Even the dog whines in disapproval.

“Hear me out.” He isn’t entirely sure if he’s addressing Sam or the dog. “I know she’s not exactly above board, but she fucking owes us from Baltimore, right? And maybe her being kinda shady will be to our benefit. For once.”

“She steals and sells valuable artifacts! Valuable and _dangerous_ artifacts! She’s the kind of person James would hunt down, Dean.”

At the mention of James’s name, Dean’s mouth sets into a hard line and his jaw clenches so hard it aches. He has to forcibly relax his hands on the steering wheel.

“C’mon, Sammy. I know you have a crush on her,” he says.

“I do not!” Sam’s voice rises almost an octave. “She’s a jerk, and she always screws us over.”

“I’d rather be screwed over than get Bobby killed. Look, when I called her the other day—”

“You _what?_ ”

“—When I called her the other day, she didn’t know anything, but she thought she could put me in contact with someone with more extensive knowledge of ‘active magic practitioners’ or whatever she said. It didn’t seem like we’d need to go that route at the time, but things’ve changed since then. So I’m thinkin’, call her back, get this person’s name, and go from there.” 

He doesn’t know whether or not he expected his brother to actually go along with it, but he’s not surprised when Sam snorts derisively and then falls silent—a silence that lasts all of two minutes.

“I’m sorry, I still can’t wrap my head around this. You called Bela? _When_ , exactly?”

“It was after that first cemetery. The day before we found James. I was out of leads, Sam! Besides, she called me back, maybe she has some information. That was right after Bobby, though, and I wasn’t in the mood for her shit right then, and then we ditched our phones… Anyway, that’s not important. What’s important is that she’s a resource, and we don’t have a lot of those right now.”

Sam huffs angrily and turns to stare out the window, effectively shelving the discussion without resolution.

Tired of being cooped up with a huffy brother, Dean soon pulls over to get gas and take a leak. The topic of Bobby gets resurrected immediately once they get back on the road, and they argue for another twenty miles before Dean finally puts his foot down and outright refuses to go anywhere near Sioux Falls. Sam’s sullen and cross, acting more like a child than a thirty-year-old man. 

 

Sam refuses to contact Bela himself, so once they stop for the night, it’s the first thing Dean does. It’s a very typical conversation with her: she berates him for ignoring her calls and taunts him for getting teleported to Canada (why did he even let that slip?), and then gets down to business. Bela does indeed have news for them, in the form of a name. One name, supposedly belonging to a powerful information broker, and it’s not one he’s even passingly familiar with. What’s even stranger is that she offers it up for free; something about owing Bobby for Flagstaff, whatever the hell that means. 

But he’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Dean waits for Sam to get up to take the dog out, then parks himself in front of the laptop and gets to searching. 

Sam hasn’t bothered to erase his browser history, and the first thing Dean sees when he starts up Chrome is a page filled with sites that appear to be about returning to school as a non-traditional adult student. Stunned, he scans down the history page and spies some other pages about applying for loans, housing near Stanford… With a sick feeling in his stomach, Dean scrolls further down, looking for similar sites. The searches started weeks ago, but the heaviest traffic has been in the past few days. He closes his eyes and clamps his lips together, and then takes a few deep breaths. Slowly and purposefully, he closes the history tab and opens a blank search page.

When Sam comes back with a coffee (only one, Dean notes sourly), Dean still knows nothing useful.

“What’s this?” Sam asks, looming over Dean. Dean shifts in the chair and leans away, but Sam doesn’t take the hint. Dean jabs an elbow backward. Sam neatly dodges it.

“Move over,” Sam says.

“No.”

“Do you even know what you’re doing?”

“Sam, I _know_ how to do a fucking internet search. I’m not a luddite.”

Sam pushes at Dean until he gives up and stalks off. Dean thumps down on the bed—Sam’s bed—and makes himself comfortable with his boots still on. Sam doesn’t even spare him a glance. Before Dean can get around to crop dusting, Sam’s found something. 

“I don’t like it,” he says, and scowls at the screen and types at a furious pace. “This guy looks like bad news.”

“Okay. What kind of bad news?”

“He’s set himself up as some kind of deal broker and a fixer, if I’m understanding this right. A darknet search brings him up, and there’s some seriously creepy shit here. There’s a way to contact him through this site, but there’s no telling how quickly that’ll work, if at all, if you aren’t also contracting him for his services.”  
“Bela gave me a number. I just wanted to look him up first.”

Sam chews his lip for a moment.

“I think we should find another angle, Dean.”

“Another angle for contacting this guy?”

“No. Another angle for going after the cult. This guy dabbles in black magic, dark artifacts, cursed objects, and this hints at stuff like kidnapping and _torture._ I wouldn’t even rule out murder for hire. Dude, he’s seriously bad news.”

Dean sighs. He rubs a hand over his face wearily, scratches at the stubble he hasn’t done anything about in days. 

“Awesome. Well, Bobby is absolutely out of the question, and this was the only lead Bela could come up with. We already went through everyone else in our book days ago. So what other angle do you suggest, exactly?” There’s a tiny, tiny part of Dean that hopes Sam actually has a viable answer, because Dean trusts Bela about as far as he can throw her.

Sam’s quiet for several moments. “What about James’s church?”

“Okay, great. I’m all for it. What church is it?”

“Uh, well, he didn’t tell me. He didn’t tell you?”

“Why the hell would he, Sam? He was all buddy-buddy with you.”

“What? No, he—anyway, that’s not important. Well, I guess that was a short-lived idea, then.” Sam stares at Dean, eyes soft, pleading. “Can you just reconsider Bobby?”

“No. No way, Hermano.”

Sam sighs. He drums his fingers lightly on the table, then pulls a fold-out highway map from his messenger bag. “I suppose we can always track James’s trip backward from Freeport…”

At _yet another_ reminder of how he got James killed, fire rushes through his veins and he bangs his head back against the headboard; the sharp pain that blossoms throughout his skull is strangely satisfying. The way that Sam jumps at the noise is even more so.

“Are you out of your mind? You even have any idea how long that’ll take? Besides, it’s a total crapshoot.”

“Alright, what about Pastor Jim? Maybe he knows of churches that store artifacts—” 

“Dude, no, we don’t have time for that. No, we’re going with Bela’s guy. She’s certain he knows something about necromancers, so whatever he’s into, we can handle it. We _will_ handle it.”

Sam mutters something under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” Sam says. He slaps his hands on the table and stands, nearly toppling the chair, and stalks over to the door. He can’t see Sam’s face, but those are definitely his ‘pissed off’ shoulders. His whole bearing radiates his displeasure so well that Dean couldn’t possibly miss it, even if he was dense enough to misconstrue the chair almost falling over. And the door slamming. Probably won’t see him again for an hour or two, but he’ll come around; it’s really the only option they have available.


	10. Cautionary Warning

_Have you lost your self-control  
T_ _o the one you believed could save your soul_

Because he’s not a complete idiot, Dean has misgivings about this plan of action. Sam’s seemingly harsh assessment of Bela is actually a bit mild. The few times they’ve worked with—sorry, _run into_ —her in the past, it’s always come back to bite them in the ass. Therefore, it’s an absolute certainty that something’s gonna go south. Talking to the guy over the phone doesn’t change his feelings on the matter; the man’s voice grates on Dean’s nerves, and his cheerful willingness to meet with them to discuss terms pings a warning deep in the back of Dean’s mind.

So, yes. Misgivings a plenty. But he’ll die before he lets Sammy see the doubt cracking through the thin veneer of confidence. He’d pounce on it, and then they’d have to track down James’s church, deal with people who knew James, apologize to people who knew James. So the uncertainty weighs down on him for the duration of the tense drive to St. Louis and by the time they get to the outskirts of the metro area, he has a pounding headache. 

Dean pulls Stolen Car Number 4 into the dark and nearly empty lot of a seedy bar crouched between close-set buildings. Any night on a normal hunt, and he’d be thrilled going to a place like this: dark, anonymous, just enough people to provide the illusion of human company, but not enough to force contact with them. In their current circumstances, though, they shoulda held out for somewhere a little more well lit and with a better exit strategy. Hovering next to him and occasionally brushing shoulders as they walk to the entrance, Sam is tense and keyed up as well. Dean wishes James were with them. He’s kind of surprised at how quickly they both took to the weird guy. After all, they’ve only known him for a week, and for much of that time, Dean was messing with him or James was being sullen and silent… or fucking with him. Still, the guy was a good cleric (wizard) to have on your side, and just him and Sam and the dog suddenly feels lonely again. It’s not as bad as adjusting to Mom being gone, but it’s… Well. Dean quietly tucks away these stray thoughts in the farthest corners of his mind. Thinking about it can’t change the situation. It can only distract, and he needs his shit together right now.

The dark interior takes a good moment to adjust to, and then he sees something the teeniest bit out of place for a joint like this: a trio of men in dark suits seated at the corner booth, all facing the room, backs to the wall, looking toward the door. At him and Sam. The man in the center is dwarfed by the giants on either side of him. He’s the better dressed of the three, his dark hair is short and styled neatly, and he sports a well-trimmed beard that’s only slightly greying. A tumbler and a mostly-full bottle of something dark sit square on the table in front of him. 

This, clearly, is the man they came to see, and those, clearly, are the bodyguards that were never mentioned over the phone. The weight of the gun tucked into the back of Dean’s jeans nags at him, and he only just manages to fight off the urge to have it in hand; there’s a damn good reason they decided on a public place, even if this barely counts because there’s no telling if the bartender and two patrons are bystanders or in cahoots with the man they came to see. So no, no shootouts just yet. Relax, Dean. 

The man indicates the two chairs pulled up to the table with a careless wave of a hand. That worm of unease inches further up Dean’s back, and he darts a quick look over to Sam, whose mouth settles into a flat, unfriendly line. They stop a foot away from the table and remain standing. The man assesses Sam, then his gaze drifts over to Dean and sweeps over him appraisingly. Whatever he sees in Dean that he didn’t see in Sam seems to satisfy him; he leans back against the backrest of the booth, the barest hint of a smirk hovering on his lips.

“You’re Crowley?” Dean barks the words out, and for the millionth time wonders why he can’t just be civil every once in awhile. It’s probably because almost everyone they run into is a creepy bastard.

“I am. And you must be the Winchesters. Care for a nip?” He gestures to the empty tumblers on their side of the table.

“Cut the chatter, this ain’t a social call. You have some information that we need,” Dean says.

“Skipping the niceties, I see. Then let’s get down to it, shall we? It sounds like you’re looking for a cult. A very particular cult. Necromancers…” Crowley leans forward and shudders theatrically. “Nasty buggers, that lot. The outfit’s run by a mean bitch by the name of Meg and her lieutenant Tom.”

“You just happen to know them?” Sam asks. Dean can hardly believe their luck. And that’s just it, really: luck, which has evaded them all their lives only to land them in this fucking mess, _now_ suddenly decides to get with the program?

“Let’s just say that I’m acquainted with them and have a good understanding of their… philosophies.”

Dean snorts.

“And you’re going to just give this information to us?” Sam says. He draws up to his full height, straightens his shoulders. It adds another inch or two. The bodyguards tense up in response, the cracked vinyl of the booth squeaking under them, but Crowley just smiles.

“Ah, see, that’s the thing. I won’t accept monetary payment, as I have no need for more of the stuff, but there is something—a small task—where I could use your assistance. It’s just a trifling matter, really. No big thing for hunters as accomplished as the Winchesters.” 

“Uh huh. Stop blowing up my skirt and just spit it out already,” Dean says. He scrubs his chin, scratching at the stubble. Crowley’s smile slips a little bit further, but whether that’s a result of Dean’s language or hygiene is unclear.

“I can provide you with their organizational history and the location of at least one of their senior members. All I need in return is for you two to acquire a particular artifact from its repository—and before you question the morality of such actions, it’s something I myself cannot touch or use, so you needn’t have any qualms.”

“Mm-hmm. And why isn’t Bela ‘acquiring’ this thing for you? Isn’t that kinda what she does?” Sam asks.

“Because, moron, she can’t handle it, either.”

Dean turns to Sam and scratches at his stubble again. “Should that worry us? I feel like we should be worried about that.”

“Yeah, I think so.” Sam takes a step toward the table and looms over it. The bodyguards bristle. “You say you can’t use it, okay, fine. Let’s say we believe you. So _why_ do you want it—what do you want it used _for_? You’ve gotta be getting something out of this.”

“I want it used to destroy the cult, obviously. Once you’re finished with that, I’ll just need said item back for my…” The man pauses, and his tone changes; his voice lowers and he almost sounds suggestive: “personal collection.”

“How do you know either one of us can touch it?” Dean smirks at the man, lip curling up in a hollow approximation of a flirtation. “I mean, we just met and all. I don’t put out that easy.”

Crowley releases a pent-up breath and scowls at Dean. “It’s the kind of thing that can only be handled by decent folk like yourselves, and if there’s one thing I’m good at—well, scratch that, I’m good at a lot of things. Suffice it to say, I can smell the putrid reek of your decency a mile away.”

Decency? Hah. That’s obviously a lie, but oddly enough, Sam seems to accept it. His brother’s stance relaxes a bit, and he leans back from the table. He nods, then asks, “Okay, fine, then: why do you want us to succeed?”

“Meg wants to take over the world. That is to say, her boss does. I don’t want that to happen because her boss doesn’t like me very much, thus, very bad things are in store for me if they succeed. I don’t know about you, but personally I’d like to stay in one piece. It’s simply a matter of survival.”

“Give us a minute.”

Sam drags Dean several feet away from the table. 

“Something about him—” Sam shakes his head and purses his lips. “Something’s _off_ about him. He’s not a good guy, Dean. I don’t trust him and I don’t like it. This is too… I feel like he knows too much about us. I can’t explain it.”

“I don’t trust him, either. And you’re right, this is about way more than he’s letting on. But that doesn’t matter, because we’re out of fucking options.”

“It always matters, Dean. And we can find another way. We just gotta look for one. Look, let’s call Pastor Jim, alright? Please?”

Fuck. It’s not like Sam’s wrong; but _he’s_ not wrong, either. This is one of those things he really hates about the job, the life. When they were young, when Mom was in charge, things weren’t this complicated. She made the decisions, and they followed her. But how much of that was just Mom pretending, like he does? And how often did she agonize over the ends justifying the means? Did she ever? He can’t conceive of it, but Bobby once said that Dean was like Mom, and it hadn’t seemed like a compliment at the time, judging from Bobby’s liberal usage of ‘idjit’. Maybe she really did have doubts. Maybe. And then… Mom was gone and Dean was in charge. _Is_ in charge. He pulls his resolve in, lets it sink into his bones, bolsters himself with it.

“I _know_. It’s a shit deal, but we’re doing this. We just gotta keep our eyes open for when he turns on us.”

Sam squeezes his eyes shut and his jaw works, muscles tensing. When he looks Dean in the eye again, Sam’s eyes are cold and hard and his brows furrowed above them.

“This is a monumental mistake, Dean, and I only hope we live long enough to regret it.” Sam’s voice cuts through him like ice, but at least he finally has his brother’s support as they return to Crowley.

“If you two are finished with your little tête-à-tête, may we proceed? I do have other things to do today.” His words are harsh and sarcastic, but he looks much less pissed than he did a few moments ago. Honestly, it makes Dean nervous, like this whole business does, but what the fuck else are they going do? 

 

Morning sunlight glints off of the borrowed car and Dean squints against the reflection from the window. The piece of paper clutched in his hand crinkles as he stares, disbelieving, at the storefront before them. Hand-painted lettering on the glass is barely discernible through the security shutter, but he’s reasonably certain this address matches the one Crowley gave them. He tugs on his tie, then smooths it down before patting at his pockets. 

Next to him, Sam snorts. “Really? This so-called powerful magic weapon is _here?_ ”

Dean darts a look over at his brother. “Maybe. Maybe not. But they don’t open for almost an hour. Breakfast first?”

Sam nods assent, and they jog across the street to a little diner that sits kitty-corner.

Their plates are empty and coffee refills cooling before Dean broaches the topic of their mission.

“You think it’s actually in there? I was expecting a museum or some rich dude’s house, not…” He jogs his head in the building’s direction. Their booth gives them an excellent view of the storefront. 

Sam shrugs. “A pawnshop? It’s not the weirdest place we’ve found artifacts. And I don’t want to jinx us, but it’s probably the easiest retrieval we’ll have to do.”

“Yeah, don’t count your chickens.”

“Eggs, Dean.”  
“What?”

“It’s eggs, not chickens.”

“No, it’s chickens. Or chicks, maybe. Not eggs.”

“Whatever. Shall we?”

Sam all but jumps up from the table. He brushes imaginary crumbs off himself, and it’s a tiny thing, but Dean’s glad he isn’t the only one uncomfortable with the monkey suit today. He’s absolutely sure that James would laugh at them if he could see them right now.

Mood thoroughly dampened by dead-friend thoughts, Dean tosses some bills down on the counter. They saunter out the door, jog back across the street between sporadic bursts of traffic. He glares at the grey sedan they’re currently using; he’d give Baby a comforting pat as they walk on by if she were here.

The store interior is both like and unlike every other pawnshop they’ve been in. Shelves and counters fill up the available space, and the surfaces are covered with all manner of things from minor treasures to absolute junk. There’s jewelry, watches, china and silverware, heirlooms and antiques, and then there’s… the other stuff, just visible behind the main counter at the back of the store. A locked cage surrounds a shelving unit filled with boxes covered in flowing scripts, runes, and symbols even he doesn’t recognize. His unease—that little shiver down his spine that he’s growing all too accustomed to these past few days—spikes.

Because this pawnshop has _curse boxes_ out on display. Locked up, but still visible for all to see. That’s just nutty. It’s more than that; it’s fucking irresponsible, is what it is. The security on this place is nothing special, and people like Bela would have no trouble getting in, none at all. Jeez, James would have a field day in here.

Sam nudges him, and Dean starts wildly before following Sam’s gaze up toward the ceiling. Protection symbols are painted across the surface. He takes a more careful look around; now that he’s looking for them, he can see sigils and runes on the walls, and there, on the carpet, and carved onto the storage shelves, too. Alright, so, fine. That’s slightly less irresponsible, but still, people can walk in here and _buy_ that shit. Like him and Sam are about to do, more or less.

Dean settles himself, straightens his shoulders, and tries to get into the role. They approach the counter, and a wiry man with a tired face and greying hair—though he can’t have hit forty yet—straightens up from behind it. His eyes sharpen as his gaze flicks over them, takes in their bearing and clothing. So far, so good.

“G-good morning, officers. Or… is it detectives?” The man’s voice is tired, and he seems nervous, but the slightest hint of curiosity eases through in his tone, and that’s good. That’s something they can use.

“Good morning.” Sam smiles tightly, a grim little thing that suits his Fed persona perfectly. It’s not rude, exactly, but it does send the message that he’s here on important business. He pulls out his FBI badge, and Dean scrabbles inside his jacket to grab his as well. “I’m Agent Ralphs, and this is Agent Rodgers.”

The man stands up a little straighter.

“Interesting collection you’ve got here,” Dean says, gesturing toward the shelves behind the counter before Sam can continue his spiel. The man turns to him, smiles. It’s wistful, and Dean instantly recognizes it as grief. He should know, he’s worn that same smile often enough himself. 

“Thank you,” the man replies. “It’s—it was my m-mother’s shop. She was into some weird stuff.”

“You don’t have any idea what any of this is, do you?”

The man’s eyes widen at Sam’s suddenly aggressive tone, and he stumbles back a step from them.

“Well, no, like-like I said, it was all my mother’s junk.”

“Where did your mother get all this stuff?” Sam looms over the counter.

“I—” He pauses, mouth slack, and his eyes dart between Sam and Dean. “I don’t know! She collected things over the years, kept them in storage in the back. She passed away a few weeks ago, and I took over the shop, okay? S-she didn’t exactly keep records for her personal collection, not that I know about.” 

“Shit,” Sam breathes out under his breath, his words meant only for Dean. “This guy really doesn't know anything about anything. We don’t really have time to deal with all of these.” 

“Poor bastard. Well, alright, how about this. We put the fear of god into him, have him lock it all back up in his mom’s storage, come back for it later?” The words are out of his mouth before he remembers that there might not be a ‘later’. 

Sam seems to realize this the same time Dean does. “Or we could, uh, get a trailer and, um, rig up our own storage place, ward it with sigils? Like that place Mom used to have?”

Dean scrubs his chin. “We’d have to pony up enough cash for, what, maybe a year, find someone to take care of it, y’know, if-if we don’t make it past this.”

“Bobby,” Sam says. 

Dean nods. “Good enough solution as any.” And even if something happens to Bobby, Jody could take care of it. 

They turn back toward the counter, where the man has been watching their whispered conversation nervously; again, his gaze darts between the two of them.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Sam says. “We came here to take custody of an item of importance in an ongoing investigation, but we’ll also be confiscating this lot of boxes. They’re, uh, historic artifacts of significant cultural importance and protected by international law. Now,” Sam adds hastily as the man stiffens up, “we’re not saying your mother came by them illegally. We have no proof of that. We’re just going to remove them from the premises, to ensure that no harm comes to them _or_ yourself, alright, Mr.…”

“Uh, Freeman, Scott Freeman.” The man nods jerkily and moves to unlock the cage. 

“No, no, no, no. Hold up, Scott. We can’t just do this all willy-nilly,” Dean says. “We’ll grab the thing we came for, then we’ll arrange secure transportation for these. We should be able to pick them up in an hour or two, no more than three. Now, in the meantime, you’re not to open that cage, touch the boxes, or allow any employees or customers to touch them, either. Do not look at the boxes. Do not even _think_ about the boxes.”

“Now, have any of them been sold or reclaimed? It’s extremely important that we know if any of the boxes have left the shop,” Sam says. 

The man looks at Sam and shakes his head, eyes practically bugging out of his head.

“Thank heaven for small mercies,” Dean mutters under his breath, and Sam huffs a humorless laugh.

“Alright, so. On to our other business. We’re looking for a dagger or a, a knife. It’s about yea long—” Dean demonstrates “—double-bladed with a bone inlay grip, and has some weird runic carvings.”

The man nods and points to his right, down toward the display case that makes up the counter. Just sitting there in plain view is a blade remarkably like the one Crowley described to them. Dean holds up the paper; along with the shop address, Crowley had left a crude drawing of the blade. Yeah, that looks like the one. Dean nods at Sam, who places a large cloth and an actual evidence bag down on the countertop. Trust Sam to get really into the role-playing, the nerd. 

They get the thing out of the case without any mishap, and Sam lays it down on the cloth. Dean stares at it; in the case, he’d thought it’d just been a trick of the light. But, no, the blade really is _dark_. It seems to absorb all the light, which makes the runes very hard to see. Or maybe it’s magic (duh), because his eyes seem to skitter and slide across the surface without really being able to focus on anything. Creepy fucking thing. He reaches over Sam and rolls it up in the cloth and shoves it into the evidence bag.

“To tell you the truth, I’m not sad to see that thing go. It’s always made me nervous,” Scott says as they prepare to take their leave, and ain’t that the truth?


	11. Power and Control

_A human vulnerability  
_ _Doesn't mean that I am weak_

When they slide into the car, Sam tosses him a smug look. 

“Easiest retrieval ever.”

Far be it for Dean to deny his brother a well-earned ‘I told you so’; he simply makes a face in response, which pulls a chuckle out of Sam. 

Once they’re moving down the street, Sam removes the blade from the evidence bag. Even with a glance out of the corner of his eye, Dean can tell that Sam’s careful to keep the grip wrapped in the cloth. However, if he knows his brother, he’s going to be curious about what makes this thing tick. It’s the same instinct, the drive for knowledge that led him to inspect the altar and get tutored on James’s magic stuff, as well as many other slightly dumb things he’s done over the years. So Dean can be forgiven for being a little nervous with Sam’s level of interest.

“Hey, Sammy, wanna leave that thing alone for a sec and give Bobby a call? See what he wants to do about that pawnshop?”

There’s no reply from Sam, and Dean shoots a couple of quick looks over at his brother, who’s staring determinedly at the blade, turning it slightly to angle it toward the light. Even though he’s not really _looking_ , Dean can still see that the light shies away from the blade, no matter which way Sam turns it. It just gets absorbed into the thing. And there’s a… a _pull_. He can feel it. It’s like how you can feel that someone’s in a room even if you can’t see them. Like it has a presence. Thing’s fucking creepy.

“Dude, put it away for a minute, okay?” Dean snaps, the edge in his voice unintentional but effective.

Sam glances at him with wide eyes, the little trance or whatever he had going on there broken. “Yeah, sure,” he finally says, and wraps it back up. Immediately, the thick air in the car eases and Dean’s fingers gradually loosen up, cramped from gripping the steering wheel too tightly. He hadn’t even noticed the oppressive atmosphere until it dissipated, but whether it was a product of the blade itself or his own nerves, he can’t be sure. He swallows.

“Can you call Bobby? The pawnshop?”

“I’ll get right on it.”

 

Crowley meets them at the same bar as last night; it’s just after noon and the place is only moderately busier than it had been before. And by ‘moderately busier,’ that means there’s four additional people stooped over on bar stools. He still doesn’t know if they’re all Crowley’s people, or just regulars. Smart money’s on Crowley’s people, because the man is seriously out of place, and no one’s even giving him a second glance. Or a first glance, for that matter. On the plus side, he doesn’t have any oversized goons dancing attendance on him today.

Dean slides into the booth next to Crowley and crowds right up against him. Crowley shifts away, an action that’s soon halted by Sam scootching himself onto the other side of the booth. Crowley settles back into the seat with a grimace etched onto his face. Dean rubs a hand over his chin, scratches at his scruff that’s now been building for days. 

“Hello, boys. Well, isn’t this cozy?” Crowley looks between them, then waves a hand over at the bar, a dismissive gesture; Dean looks up to see the bartender glaring at them in the midst of reaching down behind the bar. At Crowley’s gesture, the bartender brings his hand back up and resumes toweling the surface. Guess that answers that question.

Dean smiles, wide and thin. “Mornin’, Crowley! Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

There’s a rustling sound followed by a muted _thunk_ as Sam sets the blade down, still covered by cloth in the evidence bag. Crowley eyes it. If Dean hadn’t been paying close attention to the man, he’d have missed the way he leans away from it the slightest amount. So even _he’s_ nervous of the thing. That a good sign, or a bad one?

“Here it is.” Sam sounds smug. “Time to spill the beans, Crowley.”

“Unwrap it first. Just the corner is fine. Don’t just sit there, Moose, I need to be certain.”

Sam grimaces. He does remarkably resemble a moose; Dean’ll have to remember that for later so he can—

Sam lifts the corner of the cloth covering the blade. The tip of the knife, all that is currently visible, is dull in the dim light of the dingy bar, so Dean can’t explain why it dazzles him like a strong reflection would. He blinks, then squeezes his eyes shut, but the stars dance behind his eyelids in a circular, swirling pattern, a yawning black hole growing in the center. A soft, off-key sound flits at the edge of his awareness; it sounds almost like humming. No, not humming. With that cadence… it’s like the vibration of someone talking too low to make out the words, like hearing someone speak through a wall, or a… a **_door_**. He probably shouldn’t, but he hones in on it, listens intently, searches his consciousness for anything even remotely resembling a door, something he can open to make it clearer. The sounds—the words—skitter across his mind, and the sense that he’s close prickles at him, understanding remaining just out of reach. But the harder he tries to make sense of the voice, the more his head hurts. Finally, he gives up when the blood rushing through his ears is too loud to ignore, when the voice is drowned out. He pries his eyes open to see Sam and Crowley staring at him, Sam concerned and Crowley… expectant? Oh, that can’t be good. Sam’s mouth is moving, and the thrumming pulse in his ears starts to subside, fading into a faint whisper until finally he can hear normally.

“—answer me!” 

“It’s okay, Sammy. I’m fine. It’s okay.” Dean glances down at his hands, trembling on the tabletop. He feels cold and… empty. **_Bereft_** _,_ his mind helpfully supplies.

“The hell was that?!” Sam’s voice is too loud. It’s too much for even the most incurious afternoon sot to ignore, and several heads turn to stare at them. Crowley eases himself against the seatback, a smirk curling around his lips. So maybe Sam was right about this guy. Too late now, though. He looks at Sam, shakes his head, and Sam presses his lips together but backs off.

“You owe us some information,” Dean states. Move on and plow ahead like nothing weird just happened.

“Retrieving the item was only part of the payment,” Crowley says. “I’m still waiting for the rest of our bargain to be completed.”

“Information. Now.”

Crowley sighs, a bit theatrically, Dean thinks, but then he shrugs.

“Well, I can share a little bit, give you a taste. Maybe that will spur you on enough to get you to fulfill your part of the bargain.” Crowley pauses, rolls his lips together. “Your cult is a bastard child of the Thelemic tradition, magic practitioners dedicated to discovering their true purpose, their calling, through spirit communication and manipulation. As one moved up the ranks, one had to complete a series of trials, such as acquiring a celestial guardian, and using its guidance to traverse the Abyss, a dangerous landscape on the plane of Hell, to receive enlightenment. Rumor has it that in the late fifties an adept in the organization had a mishap during her trials and went on a rampage. The slaughter brought an end to the organization and gave rise to the cult as you know it. Or don’t know it, if we want to be technical about your level of ignorance. In any case, nobody knows much about Meg, where she came from, or how she resurrected the cult. They’re just as obsessed with traversing the Abyss as the parent organization, only instead of seeking to overcome the Abyss to emerge unscathed on the other side, they revel in the downfall, disappearing into it and becoming prey to its machinations. Hosts for its denizens, which they would likely bring to our plane of existence. So you can see my dilemma, I hope.”

“Alright, fine. Sounds pretty straightforward. Why all the fucking zombies, though?”

“What, an expendable army that’s easy to replenish? What could they possibly want with that?”

Dean mutters to himself.

“Necromancy isn’t only relegated to mastery over the corporeal dead, Mr. Winchester. It also encompasses the calling and control of incorporeal beings, spiritual _and_ demonic. Honestly, I don’t understand how you two have survived on your own for so long with such a deplorable lack of knowledge.”

Sam glowers at him and Dean rolls his eyes, but Crowley ignores them and uses a pen to push the wrapped blade over to Dean, who slides his hand over it in an automatic response.

“For this next bit I’ll only need the assistance of Dean, so, Moose: you can wait here, or feel free to tool around town while we’re gone.” 

“Uh, no, sorry. Not happening. My brother and I don’t split up,” Dean says while Sam snorts in agreement.

Crowley smiles, and goosebumps spring up along Dean’s arms. “This time, you do.”

The man reaches out and touches Dean before he even realizes what’s happening, and then they’re gone.

 

The floor doesn’t drop out from under him this time; they just ‘pop’ into being in a dimly lit, dilapidated old warehouse. Dean immediately drops into a half-crouch and reaches for his gun. Only when his hand scrabbles uselessly at the back of his waistband does he recall that he left it in the trunk of their borrowed car with all the rest of his stuff after they changed out of their suits. 

Lesson learned.

“What the fuck was that?!” he yells after Crowley, who’s a little ways ahead of Dean by now. The man stops and turns, partially facing him. A shadow obscures the greater portion of his face, leaving only his mouth visible as his lip curls.

“Why, Dean, there’s no need to be alarmed. Everything’s going to go according to plan.”  
“Yeah, _your_ plan. Not mine. For the record, not a fan of this whole… nonconsensual teleportation business. Why the hell did you leave Sam behind? And where the fuck are we?”

Crowley takes a step toward him, and a shaft of weak light from a half-boarded-up window breaks over his face. He’s calm, content. Like he has exactly what he wants.

“We’re right where we need to be, Squirrel. I had my lackeys do a bit of digging around for me. Tom has been using this space as his hidey-hole. You’ll dispatch him, using the blade you aquired for me, and then I’ll return you to your darling brother. Simple as that.”

“I’m beginning to get the idea that with you, nothing’s as simple as it seems.”

“You would be correct in that assumption. Nevertheless, completing this task is the only way you’ll be getting back.”

To his credit, Dean very seriously considers walking out of the abandoned industrial complex. It wouldn’t be that hard to figure out where he is, and to steal a car or hitch a ride back to St. Louis. He brushes against his pants pocket as unobtrusively as he can; he still has his burner phone with him, so he could even contact Sam. Why, then, is Crowley so certain that Dean can’t leave? Or maybe… he’s certain that Dean _won’t_ leave. It’s true that if he left, they wouldn’t get the rest of the info Crowley’d promised. But they do have some of the details, and Bobby is damn good at research—

And then he remembers why they had to resort to Crowley in the first place. Keeping Bobby out of it is probably more important than getting missish about his virtue. As Dean chews over his limited options, Crowley’s satisfied smirk slips into a twisted grimace.

“There really aren’t any other viable options, Mr. Winchester. If you ever want to see your brother or adoptive father ever again, I suggest you get on with it.” 

Dean stares at him, dumbstruck. Of course Crowley would try and hold Sam hostage, and hold it over Dean’s head. It’s only natural, given the way Sam was left behind at Crowley’s bar. But Bobby, too? If Crowley knows about Bobby _now_ , did he know about Bobby _before_? A sick thought curls around his brain, twists its way into the nooks and crannies of his mind: _maybe the necromancers hadn’t gone after Bobby._ Maybe it’d been Crowley all along, setting things in motion to get them to this point. But… why? Even if using the blade against the necromancers was the only way to defeat them, that still left the question why _he_ was necessary. Mom had been the strategist and Sam the knowledge base, Dean had always been the grunt, the muscle. He might have stepped into Mom’s shoes, but that role wasn’t _him_. The idea that he’s somehow needed is too ridiculous to fathom; He can’t even begin to wrap his head around the logistics of Crowley’s machinations, so he shoves everything down, to the back of his mind. He’ll have to try and figure this out later. If there is a later. He looks back at Crowley. 

Crowley points in the general direction of Dean’s knees then smiles apologetically, hands splayed wide, placating. “You’ll need to unwrap the blade to tap into its power, by the way. And I’m afraid you’ll need its power to defeat Tom the Bloody Necromancer.” 

Dean looks down at his left hand in some surprise, because right, it’s holding the blade.

He’d be lying if he said he thought he’d get through this without touching the damn thing, but maybe he’d been holding out some hope… He’s only really seen it out of the corner of his eye, and that was just about enough to last him a lifetime. But just as he’s about to pull aside the cloth and take the plunge, Crowley speaks again.

“I should probably inform you that the pack of zombies Tom raised a few nights ago is pacing around in the next room. You’ll have to go through them to get to him.”

“Oh, fan-fucking-tastic; of course they are! Anything else you’d like to impart?”

Crowley points behind him. Dean turns to see a giant fucking nightmare dog. He tenses, and Crowley chuckles.

“Relax. Juliet is here to help you.”

“What… what is that thing, a goddamn hellhound? Uh, I’d much rather have my brother than _that_. C’mon, man. What gives?”

“Dean, Dean. It’s easy enough to see that Sam disapproves of me—”

Dean pulls his gaze away from the giant shape of the dog-thing. “ _I_ disapprove of you!”

“Yes, but you’ll still do what needs to be done. Sam believes the two of you have other options open to you.”

Dean holds up the covered blade, looks at it, looks at Crowley, brows raised. “You sure I don’t?”

Crowley’s easy grin collapses into a snarl, and spittle flies from his mouth as words punch out. “No, you don’t have any other fucking options, you fucking twat! We made a deal, and it’s your turn to hold up your fucking end of the bargain! Or you can fight your way out past me, my faithful hound, oh, _and_ Tom, _and_ his zombies, because I’ll unmuffle us if you even make a move toward me.”

Dean swallows. His jaw’s tense and tight, he’s been clenching it so hard. He nods, hands raised. But if Crowley thinks that he’s gonna forget this, let him get away with—with _whatever_ the hell he’s trying to get away with here, he’s got another think comin’. Keeping his glare focused on Crowley—he will not look at that thing until it’s absolutely necessary—he carefully pulls back the corner of the wrapping.

And then, as inevitable as the sun setting for the last time, he looks at it.

The knife is as ugly and as dull as ever, and as soon as it’s visible, weird shit starts happening again. His mind opens and stars burst, spinning and dancing in the black hollow that opens up in him. Knowing that _it’s_ coming, he listens, ears straining. It starts off with a soft ringing, so faint he could be imagining it. Then the humming starts, off-key, whispering and flitting through his mind; his mind, which is a million times larger than he ever thought it was. The blackness engulfs him, his consciousness. It washes over him, churns him into sand, wet and malleable. He sees… **_potential_**. Yes, he has potential now, where previously he hadn’t any. He needs to… he has to touch it for it to work. He remembers that now.

The blackness clears from his vision, and no time has passed at all.

Something tugs at his chest; a sharp pain, clean and bright, twists through his core, rings in his mind. It almost sounds like a voice; a different voice. It should be familiar to him, but—

He must have imagined it. He’s calm, he’s unhurt, and he knows what he has to do. He must fulfill his potential, live up to their expectations. It’s the only thing he has left. His hand closes around the bone grip, and the cloth flutters to the ground. Dark, muddy pain crawls through his palm, up his arm, and spreads through his chest, down through his groin and finally pricks the nerves in the tips of his toes. He shudders with the force of it, the here-then-gone arousal. 

This is the last thing he remembers for some time.

 

He sways as the gulf recedes, the black edge to his vision dissolving. 

His knees hurt; he’s kneeling.

He’s kinda sticky.

**_Well done._ **

 

He blinks once, twice. A hand on his shoulder—Sam. No, it’s all wrong. Not Sam. That Crowley guy. 

Well, fuck.

“Dean, are you finally back?”

And damn but he hates this dude’s voice. It’s sarcastic and suggestive and smarmy. He shakes off the hand and starts to stand—only to groan in pain. Why the hell do his knees hurt so much? He braces himself and straightens up more slowly, hands on his knees. His jeans are damp under his hands, dry and crusted over in other spots, stiff as he moves. The light’s too poor to see but he knows that it’s blood from the taste at the back of his throat. He coughs and finally looks around.

The interior of the abandoned factory is littered with corpses—he’s never seen anything like it. It’s straight-up gore. Chunks of bodies are scattered about the large space, and as his eyes shy away from the carnage, Dean swallows several times trying to keep his insides inside. What the hell happened here?

**_You know._ **

He shies away from that acknowledgment. There’s no way, no fucking way he did this, this— _slaughter._

**_It’s what you were made to do. You’re a fighter. You fight._ **

He’s filled with a sense of accomplishment, of things falling into place, of rightness. Approval. Something he’s not that familiar with.

But it’s all wrong. This isn’t him.

He closes his eyes, sees the yawning gulf opening in his mind. In a panic born of full-blown denial ( _he’s not a fucking monster)_ , he just… lets go. A dull clatter sounds next to him, and the void recedes. Eyes springing open, he darts a glance at the floor, where the blade dropped from his nerveless fingers. Disappointment tinges the edges of his consciousness, but it fades quickly, and he realizes how otherworldly that… _sense_ was.

“Here,” Crowley says. He holds out the cloth, but Dean just stares. “Might want to wrap that thing up again before you pick it up. Just a thought.”

Dean glares at the man and ignores—with great effort—the blade at his feet. 

“What the hell happened, Crowley? What did you do to me?”

“I simply let events take their course.”

“What course? Why _me_? What is that thing, and why does it…” _Why does it call to me,_ he leaves unsaid, unable to admit to its presence in his head. “I need some answers, man, or so help me, I’ll just kill you right here and now.”

Crowley sighs, shrugs. “It didn’t have to be you, per se. That blade… hungers. You happen to have the right characteristics to ‘feed’ it: goodness and purity, just ripe for corruption thanks to your staggeringly high quantities of guilt and self-doubt.”

Dean thinks about that for a moment, waits for it to sink in. But nothing about that is right. Goodness? Purity? Yeah, sure, okay. Maybe if it’s Opposite Day. He refuses to admit that any of the rest of that is true. Well, okay, maybe Mom’s death was on him and he can never make up for it, and maybe he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing because he’s a piss-poor replacement for her. But he shoves that shit down on a daily basis. No one’s supposed to know how he really feels. Even if Sam does watch him somewhat pityingly, sometimes… and Bobby always tells him not to let things get to him. So maybe he’s not as good at hiding it all as he’d like. Still, those are the people who _know_ him.

“But… _You_. How the fuck do you even know all that about me? We’ve never even met—” Dean stops, gasps. “ _Bela_. She did this? She set us up to contact you, so she must've… I'll kill her. I’ll rip her into a thousand pieces, I’ll fling her into the sun, I’ll fucking—”

“Now, now, Dean. You mustn't be so hard on her. She’s so deeply indebted to me that she didn’t have a choice. Just like you didn’t have a choice.”

Dean huffs a small, humorless laugh. “Like that makes anything okay. Are you working with them?”

Crowley starts, and surprise floods through his face. He points over Dean’s shoulder to a spot a few feet behind him. Amongst the pieces of rotting zombie flesh that he refuses to look at closely lies a human body, newly dead. It’s a man who appears to be within a few years of his own age, or maybe closer to James’s age, which Dean guesses to be a couple years older than himself. The man’s eyes stare back at him, sightless and dull. A long, red gash smiles at Dean from the man’s neck. Monsters, he’s okay with killing monsters. But this, this is the first _person_ he’s killed. Even if he was an evil sonofabitch, cutting his throat like that… Dean swallows around a lump.

“If I were with them, why would I bring about Tom’s demise? My methods might be detestable, and I may have no morals to speak of, Mr. Winchester, but I assure you, they are my enemies, too.”

“How’d you know where to find him? Last we knew, they were in— Wait, is this Madison? Are we in Madison?”

Crowley nods, a question in his eyes.

“I gotta find Baby, and you? You’re going to help me. First, I need a change of clothes and a new badge.”


	12. The Chain

_Listen to the wind blow, down comes the night  
_ _Run in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies_

Late afternoon light filters through the car interior at a low angle, bathing everything in a warm, orange glow. Dean smiles to himself as he flies down the blacktop, occasionally singing along to the music spilling out of the speakers. He had an emergency stash of clothes in the trunk, so ditched the monkey suit Crowley had procured for him at first opportunity. A spare handgun from the stash completes his new ensemble, and except for the absence of Sam, things almost feel normal again. This? This is nice. This makes him happy. 

A significant part of him had wanted to stay in town to find Meg, but the need to get back to Sam overrode it. He’s even on the damn interstate and on track to make the five-hour trip to St. Louis in just over four and a half, if he can avoid stopping for the night. But despite his best efforts, and perhaps spurred on by the monotony of a straight road with little scenery, exhaustion seeps through the cracks in his alertness. The more he tries to ignore it, the more it pulls at him. 

Fatigue paves the way for other things to break through. Suddenly, the memory of coming to in a pool of blood swamps him and he stops singing abruptly, no longer in the mood. He pushes the memory aside, tries to regain the peace he’d felt at having the Impala back, but that moment is gone. He supposes he should be thankful he doesn’t remember any of the actual slaughter, but it scares him—not being in control of himself, not knowing what he did. He wonders if that man was really Tom, or if Crowley had orchestrated everything. Every word the man has ever said is suspect, a lesson he’s learned too late. Just like all lessons, he supposes. It shouldn’t really surprise him. Of all the people they meet in this business, the vast majority of them are scumbags only looking out for number one, ready to throw anyone else under the bus at a moment’s notice. Fuck, if he ever sees Bela again, not even the entire host of heaven will save her, debt or no debt. 

More people should be like James. He, at least, was genuine.

This is what, the first time he’s thought of James since yesterday? Or maybe it was this morning. Yeah, at the pawnshop. It already feels like it was a million years ago. For the first time since James disappeared, he really lets himself think about his friend, lets the memories come without chasing them away; he wants—no, _needs_ to preserve James’s memory. Because if he doesn’t, he’s a fucking traitor. The guy _died_ for them. He owes him, and he won’t ever be able to repay him, so he damn well better remember him, right? Penance through guilt: the Dean Winchester Way.

A passing sign grabs his attention. He’s been in his own head too much the past few hours and he needs… he needs to stop, even if just for a coffee. He can remember James another time, because right now the living still need him. He steers the car onto the off-ramp. A few clouds glow red and purple in the last light from the setting sun, throwing the gas station and motel at the top of the overpass into silhouette. It’s the latter establishment he pulls into on autopilot, his weariness suddenly far too much to ignore. 

He stumbles into a room, and is asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

 

Dean jerks awake. Every part of him is frozen solid, except his eyes, which dart around wildly, but the room is too dark to see anything. His ears strain to pick up a sound, any sound. It’s so still that the silence buzzes in his ears. Gradually, as the thudding of his heart slows, motor functions return. It’s only been a few days since the last time he was literally frozen stiff in terror, and it’s not something he’d been looking to repeat this soon. He scrubs at his eyes, breathes out a few ragged breaths. One sounds suspiciously like a sob, and he swallows it down angrily. 

_It was just a dream, you big baby_ , he tells himself, but he's never felt so alone in his life.

Many of the details have vanished into that nebulous void that takes most dreams, but he knows it wasn’t _only_ a dream, knows that real memories are intermingled with the made-up crap. He just doesn’t know which parts were real, and which parts were holes being filled in by his sleeping brain. His fucking _weird_ sleeping brain. He shudders violently as bits and pieces filter through: one of the zombies was his brother, another was James, and Bobby, Mom…. The necromancer—he’d killed him, but when the body crumpled to the ground, it was his own face that gaped up at him.

He flips on the TV, lets an infomercial lull him into a sort of trance state. It’s not as good as sleep, but sleep is not in the cards for him tonight. He won't—he _can't—_ set himself up for another dream like that. The monotonous voices of the hosts blur into unintelligible murmurs as he drifts along in a reverie.

Eventually, though, sleep does claim him.

 

A pounding headache greets Dean when he wakes again. He tosses and turns under the thin blanket for ten, fifteen minutes before giving up on sleep altogether. It’s close enough to morning to count as Being Up; a soft glow sits on the eastern horizon, just visible as he looks out the lone window his room boasts. Sleeping in past dawn is a thing he knows people do, but he can’t picture the luxury for himself. He pulls on yesterday’s clothes, which now smell rather rank in addition to the stale odor they picked up from the trunk.

The need to hurry back to Sam isn’t as urgent as it was yesterday, so he takes the time to get coffee and aspirin and refuel at the gas station. Early morning chill seeps through the flannel as he waits for the gas tank to fill up, and he vows to start keeping an extra jacket in the trunk if he gets the chance. He carefully wipes down the windshield and windows. Little rituals like these help get his head on right in the morning. 

And maybe while he’s in the store he stares at the selection of cheap whiskey a bit too hard, but that choice is made for him by providence of state liquor laws and some stanchions. Instead, he asks for a packet of cheap cigarettes just as the cashier is about to hand his change back. Dean slides them into his jacket pocket where he won’t have to be reminded of his weakness until he can no longer ignore them.

 

Dean rolls into St. Louis proper too early for the bar to be open, so he pulls over on a wide street near the river. The neighborhood had seen better days. He stares at the empty storefronts crowded together, a once-tidy row of brick buildings, some painted white, some their original deep red, while he mentally composes an explanation for what happened. _Crowley teleported me to Madison and forced me to_ —no, he was persuaded, not forced. _I ended up in Madison and one of the necromancers is dead_ —no, that’s sugar-coating it a bit too much. _You were right, Crowley is a dick and not to be trusted, but Tom and those zombies won’t be a problem any more_ — He rejects that one, too, even though it’s the most accurate. None of his mental gymnastics adequately _explain_ anything. In the end, he types out a terse message telling Sam he’s back in town with Baby.

He waits for a reply, and when it comes, he drives downtown and soon finds himself staring down a valet parking attendant outside a four-star hotel. The likeliest scenario is that Crowley’s still got Sam holed up as a hostage, because Sam would never choose a place like this of his own volition. More to the point, no way would Sam send him vaguely suggestive texts in weird British slang.

The place is fucking lavish. As he makes his way through the lobby, Dean glances down at his wrinkled, stale-trunk-smelling t-shirt and jeans, but even if he were wearing the new suit, he’d still feel underdressed. And just as put-out. His stubborn pride wars with his equally stubborn practicality. If the guy wants to put them up in style, no cost to them, then why shouldn’t they take advantage of it? Hell, he could use a shower with decent water pressure and a comfy bed for once in his life. But it’s _Crowley_ : the guy’s a dick, and being under his purview in any way makes Dean’s skin crawl. And he doesn’t want to owe the guy anything, either. So fuck Crowley, and fuck his goons. He just needs to get his brother back, and then they can get the fuck out of this stuffy, over-priced hell-hole.

He rubs at his throbbing temples, takes a deep breath, shakes out his hands, and raps on the door on one of the upper floors. It’s no surprise that Sam doesn’t answer; the dude that does is a good few inches taller than Sam and about a foot wider, wearing a black t-shirt under a sleeveless denim jacket. Dean struggles to keep his face neutral, because this dude is way more built than the guys Crowley had with him the other day, and the last thing he needs is for his bad mood to lead to him getting his face punched in. 

“Hey, how ya doin’. Nice guns. Is Sam in?”

The mountain in front of him doesn’t reply, but he does back away from the door and Dean enters the room. There’s another huge dude hovering by a room service cart, watching him with little care. They don’t bother to search him, and he’s not sure whether that’s arrogance or just assurance on their part. The room is spacious and airy, and apparently a suite, because there isn’t even a bed in here, just couches and artwork and a coffee table and a fucking fireplace. Filmy curtains cover the wide expanse of windows, and mid-morning light filters through. They probably even clean the bedspread in a place like this. It’s alright, if you like places with no character and overly-ornate furniture.

“Welcome back, Mr. Winchester.” 

He turns, finding the short, black-clad man coming toward him from what’s probably the bedroom. This is the third time they’ve met, and Crowley’s wearing another suit, this time fitted black with a charcoal waistcoat and a neat red tie. The guy could probably teach James a thing or two about a well-fitting suit. Well. If James were alive. Funny how he has to keep reminding himself of that fact. 

His headache now feels like an icepick to the back of his skull. 

“Where’s Sam?”

“Predictable, Dean. Very predictable.”

“Don’t care. Where’s my brother?”

“He’s safe, never you fear.”

Dean stares at the man in front of him and wonders if he misheard somehow, because there is no way this is _actually happening_.

“Come again? Are you seriously telling me that you’re keeping him from me, when I’ve fulfilled my part of this stupid-ass bargain? I mean, c’mon, I did what you wanted, you dick!” Dean takes a deep breath. It does little to soothe the rage bubbling through his veins or the faint buzzing in his ears, but his voice is even and cold when he continues: “Give me back my brother, or I will take him out of your fucking hide. You, everyone in this room, every person you know.” 

“That’s precisely the problem. Put the gun down, Dean, and I’ll give you the information you seek.”

Dean blinks down at his gun and lowers it, easing his too-tight grip as he tucks it back into the waistband of his jeans. He doesn’t recall pulling it out in the first place. The bodyguards haven’t reacted to him, although they are watching him with wary eyes, and that in itself is strange. Maybe Crowley was expecting this, maybe he warned them. He’s not sure what that says about his state of mind since he first picked up that damn dagger. That he’s out of control, barely containing his fury, liable to fly off the handle at the drop of a pin? 

“Listen to me very carefully: I’m keeping him safe from _you,_ Dean.” Crowley picks up a decanter of something dark, arranges some glasses, and pours out two measures. He hands one to Dean, who gulps at it. Paradoxically, the burn of some _really_ nice scotch soothes him. Every cell in his body opens like flowers in bloom, welcoming the tingle. He drops the empty glass on the table next to him; Crowley’s gaze follows the motion, and he retrieves the tumbler but doesn’t refill it. Dean frowns.

“I know you’ve noticed.”

Crowley doesn’t elaborate, but he doesn’t need to. Dean nods.

“I think it’s talking to me. I’ll just be thinking, normal thoughts going through my head, and then a word or, or more like a picture pops into my head, and it’s weird, it’s alien. It’s not me, and I can’t seem to ignore it.”

It must be a sign of his fragile state if he’s confiding in Crowley, although in some respects it’s much easier to be truthful with a relative stranger than with someone who knows him, who looks up to him. Crowley doesn’t come with a lifetime of ingrained expectations. That’s about all he has going for him, though.

“But I don’t think you get it. Sam’s not in any danger from me, man. He’s my brother. I mean, we fight about shit all the time, but I’d never hurt him.”

Crowley smirks and nods. “When you’re in control of yourself, that is. Now? Who knows. Better to keep him safe.”

“Yeah, and keep me working for you, am I right?” Dean grinds the heel of his hand into his eye socket; the stars that explode into being give a moment’s relief to the headache, but it’s back as soon as his hand drops away. He points at the decanter. “Can I get some more of that? My head’s killin’ me.”

Crowley’s brow jumps, but he refills the tumbler and hands it over to Dean. It goes down just as quickly as the first one.

“That’s certainly a bonus, but it’s not my main objective. Since we’re on the topic, however, there’s another thing you can do for me. Don’t give me that look, it’s related to your crusade.”

“How’s that?”

Crowley walks to a side table. There are several old books stacked upon it, and he picks one up and hands it to him. Dean flips through it. It’s a journal of some sort, with entries dated from the 1950s, although as he thumbs through, he sees that the last ones are from the past year, written in a different hand and obviously with a modern pen. He reads for a few minutes, takes in the dates and locations, tries to make sense of the information presented before him, but the text is sparse and there’s no context for anything. The old, faded ink and his headache don’t help any, either.

“What is this?” he finally asks, unwilling to play the game any longer.

“That is the sum of the reports sent to me by my spy in Meg’s organization.”

“You’ve had a spy in the cult since the 50s. Uh-huh. Well, let me be the first to congratulate you on your spectacular genes. Or do you do the Botox?”

“We’ve been… rival organizations… since before my time.”

“Oh? And what organization are you in?”

Crowley ignores him in favor of pouring out another measure of the scotch. Dean accepts it gratefully and files away the information about rival cults for another time.

“Read the final entry, Mr. Winchester. It pertains to your next mission.”

Dean sighs and rolls his eyes, but flips through until he arrives at the final page. “Ritual. Hunter’s Moon. Location question mark, question mark, question mark. New HQ—” Dean pauses, looks up at Crowley “—Freeport, Illinois.” 

His lips purse as he tries to make his brain work through the haze of pain. “So why’d we find them in Madison if the headquarters is in Freeport?”

Crowley simply shrugs. “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t know everything.”

Dean snorts. He could come up with a few ideas about the connection between the cult and the old secret society, but chances are he’d be wrong. If he could get to Sam, though… Sam would probably figure out this journal in no time.

“Okay, so you want me to…?”

“Wipe out their headquarters, of course.”

“Oh, gee, is that all? Wait, wait, wait—you’re not going to zap me again, are you? That shit messes with my insides. I still feel wonky from the trip to Madison,” Dean says, frowning severely. “And I really don’t like killing people on command, evil cultists or not.”

Crowley’s silent for a few moments. Apparently, his internal debate ends with the decision to give Dean info.

“It’s not the teleportation that’s making you feel off, and I suspect you know this. Now,” he talks over Dean, who’s opened his mouth to argue, “as to your other concern. I find it charming how moral you are, but how else were you planning on stopping them? They aren’t going to pack up and go home if you ask nicely.”

It’s an echo of his argument to James.

Dean shrugs. “Guess you got a point. But I want to talk to Sam before we go. I don’t have to go see him in person, I just need to talk to him, to hear his voice and know he’s okay.”

 

Sam’s relief at seeing Dean alive and (somewhat) well must override the urge to rip Dean a new one for getting them in this mess.

“You look tired,” Sam supplies helpfully. Crowley paces around the room and glares at the tablet in Dean’s hands.

“Ah, I’m alright, Sammy. Douchecanoe here has me running errands while you’re on vacation.”

Sam laughs, but it neither sounds nor looks very mirthful. His eyes dart up and to the right before he looks into the camera again. “He’s got me hitting the books. If we can find out how Meg plans to ‘take over the world’ as Crowley claims, we should be able to come up with a counter.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees Crowley wave his hand in a surly ‘hurry up’ gesture.

“Oh, yeah? How’s that going? Find out anything useful?”

Sam shakes his head, then runs a hand through his hair. “Not yet. Crowley’s library isn’t bad, little better than Bobby’s, but there just doesn’t seem to be much out there on the subject. So far I’ve mostly found, uh, high-level exorcisms and possessions.” 

Dean nods. “Just keep at it, Sammy. They’ll get what’s coming to them. All of them.”

“I know. Dean—take care of yourself.” Sam looks up at the looming shape of a goon. The last thing Dean sees is Sam’s frown, and then the connection goes dark.

“Satisfied?” Crowley asks.

Oh, perfectly. He’s about to go murder some people at the behest of someone he despises, someone who may have conned him into it by orchestrating Bobby’s accident and who is also holding Sam against his will. Everything is awesome.

 

The first thing he notices when he unwraps the blade is how his headache immediately dissipates.

The second thing he notices is the joyous singing that bursts into existence in his mind. It’s like someone took a church choir, squished them up real small, and dropped them right in his head. He supposes he should probably feel weirded out by the Ode to Joy soundtrack, but he’s too busy watching the blackness rush up like a tsunami, wash over him, and pound him into shape.

It’s happy to see him again.

Like before, he doesn’t notice much else for a time.

  
  
  


“It’s a damn shame Meg wasn’t here,” Crowley says.

Dean blinks.

“Wrap that thing up, if you please.”

Dean stumbles to his feet. He’s covered in blood. Again. He’s going to need an entirely new wardrobe at this rate.

“I had to,” he says. The face on the floor below him—the all too human face of a blond woman—stares accusingly, her eyes wide and sightless, still filled with terror. She’d been stabbed in the neck so many times he’d almost severed her head. He swallows his bile and says it again, the harsh rasp of his voice raw in his ringing ears. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—I had to.”

“Yes, I know,” Crowley says. Does Crowley think he’s apologizing to _him_? Or maybe Crowley’s just trying to placate him. The blade is still in Dean’s hand, he could just reach up, one swipe, bingo bango, Crowley’s not their problem any more.

But he doesn’t know where Sam is. He _needs_ to find Sam. Finding Sam is the only thing that matters.

“Dean, wrap the blade.”

He takes the cloth from Crowley and folds it around the blade with stilted, wooden movements. The joy, the sense of approval fades away as the blade is covered, and the driving compulsion to find Sam eases as a dull throbbing starts in the back of his head. Great. This again. 

“Am I going to get a fucking headache every time I use this fucking thing?” Dean snaps at Crowley, who only looks amused. 

“How would I know? I can’t use it myself. This is uncharted territory.”

“First of all, you’re lying to me, and second of all, you’re fucking lying to me.”

Crowley shrugs. 

“Let’s get back home, shall we? It may take some time to figure out where Meg’s got herself holed up.”

“I need a fucking drink.”

 

“Really, Dean?” Sam is as disapproving as ever. What Sam doesn’t realize is that Dean’s doing all this for them. For _him_. It was the only choice they had, and it’s the one that’s getting them somewhere. But instead of thanking him, what does he do? Give him crap. “You’re completely wasted and it’s not even noon yet. Did I mention you look like shit?”

Blah, blah, blah. Shut up, Sam. All you do is yap, yap, yap.

Hurt flashes in Sam’s face for a microsecond before it’s replaced by anger. Whoops. Guess he said that out loud.

“You think?” Yep. Sam’s angry. Good. Great.

“You don’t even know, Sammy. You don’t even know what I’ve done for you. The things I do for you. All my life, Sammy. All my fucking life, and you just sit there and fuckin’ judge me. Not good enough, not smart enough, never making the right choices. Yeah, well, fuck you. This? This is getting us results.”

“What the hell kind of results—no, you know what? Forget it. Whatever results you _think_ you’re getting, they're not worth this.” 

This is the second or third time in as many days they’ve had this fight. Drinking is the only thing that even remotely keeps the headache at bay, so yes, he’s been drunk two or three solid days or maybe weeks, who even knows at this point any more. If he could just have the blade—but Crowley took it away from him once he had it wrapped up. He says he’ll give it back when they know where to find Meg. Sam’s looking for Meg. He shouldn’t yell at Sam; if Sam isn’t worried about him, Sam will find Meg quicker, and he can have the blade back quicker. They can just end this all that quicker.

He takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry, man. This whole thing just has me on edge. With Bobby, and James, and this fucking cult. You know I’ve been searching for Meg, right? Working off of Crowley’s leads? I’m doing my best, Sam. It’s all I got to offer.”

Sam sighs, his face grainy on the poor video feed from wherever Crowley’s got him stashed.

“I know, Dean. I know. I’m just worried. There are things I want to tell you, things I found out, but… You don’t look good, and you don’t sound like your—” Sam’s cut off by Crowley’s goon, who steps into play, his broad back blocking half of the camera view. The last thing Dean sees is Sam, startled, looking up at the figure looming over him. And then the laptop on Sam’s end is shut. Dean stares at his hands, shaking as he sets the tablet down. 

Crowley wouldn’t hurt Sam, not at this point; no, it’s not Sam he’s worried about.

For once, it’s himself.

Maybe Sam’ll find a way to get him out of this mess.

Only, he’s certain that whatever’s happening— _has happened_ —to him has got its talons hooked too far into him to go back now. 

He’s changed. He can feel it.


	13. Down

_Screaming voices ring in my ears  
_ _I don't want to know their names_

Crowley must think Dean’s an idiot. Oh, sure, he’s drinking himself to death, but it’s not like he’s going to live long enough to actually destroy his liver.

He knows the blade has done irreparable damage. He knows it’ll kill him, one way or another. If it’s not the constant headache—some days, he convinces himself he’s just having a really long, protracted stroke—then sooner or later, one of the cultist nests he cleans out will get the better of him. 

Three nests down, if they even are nests, with no sign of Meg. Crowley just drops him into some abandoned warehouse, and the way the people run around screaming when he shows up… Or maybe he’s just that terrifying. The more he handles the blade, the tighter its grip on him, the more he has to drink just to dull the headache to a point where he can ‘function’ until the next run. He drinks until he passes out, since he can’t sleep on his own anymore; the dreams are too vivid. He’s obliterated Sam, Bobby, even Mom and James (who, being _dead_ , should be off-limits) far too many times to count. The blade talks to him constantly now. It won’t let him think, it won’t let him sleep. It won’t let him kill himself, either. So he’s stuck in this living hell until something kills him. Fucking fantastic, right?

But what Crowley doesn’t understand is that the blade increases his tolerance. Sure, he’s drunk _constantly_ , but he’s not blackout drunk like he should be. He’s still capable of a little bit of planning.

In fact, right now, the rickety wheels in his head are turning pretty damn good.

After every excursion, Crowley has him cover up the blade, then takes it from him while he’s recovering from the debilitating effects of gleefully slaughtering people. At first, Crowley took extra precautions when secreting the blade away from Dean. The lack of any attempt to reacquire the blade on Dean’s part must have made him complacent, though, because this time? This time, Dean saw where he put the damn thing. And, oh boy, it’s a doozy.

It’s not like he’s going to grab it and kill everyone in the hotel (as an aside, he gets a nice bed to sleep in, in the room adjacent to Crowley’s. Too bad he can’t fucking sleep, haha, joke’s on Dean yet again). Probably not, at least. He doesn’t _always_ feel like he has to kill everyone. He won’t even unwrap it. Probably.

Mostly he just wants the headache to go away for a little while.

He wants to sleep. Hah, right.

Anyway, today’s the day. He reclines on the couch and peeks out between his lashes, eyes mostly closed, as he waits for Crowley to go into the bedroom. There. And right on schedule, Goon Number One follows Crowley into the bedroom (what do they do in there? Are they ‘together’ together? Who does who? _Why is he thinking about this? It’s Crowley_ ). Goon Number 2 wheels the empty room service cart to the door, and Dean makes his move. He darts over to the potted plant by the window, the one that’s conveniently invisible from both the door and the bedroom (the bedroom door is _closed_ , though, hah!). 

He eases the plain pot up out of the decorative one and gropes along the bottom. There. His fingers close around the (wrapped) handle and he pulls it out, holds it close to his chest. The headache doesn’t go away—he’d have to touch it with his naked hand for that to happen (hah, naked)—but it does ease up a little, to the point where it’s just throbbing, tight bands around his head instead of the icepick in the back of his skull. He tucks the blade inside his jacket and pulls the heavy canvas material tighter around himself. He giggles.

His prize secure, he could go back to his room. But that might be suspicious. He usually passes out on this couch after a hunt. Best to act normal.

Dean pours himself another glass of the cheap-ass rubbing-alcohol booze that Crowley started supplying him with once he realized how much Dean was going to be drinking on a daily basis. It’s not long before he passes out.

 

He dreams that he’s in the Impala, but Sam’s driving and Dean’s curled up in the passenger seat. That almost never happens. He turns around. No James, but the dog pants happily from the back seat. Strangely enough, there’s no bloody murder in this dream. Sunlight streaks into the car at a low angle. His head is killing him, and his stomach roils with the movement of the vehicle, but he decides not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Heya, Sammy. What’s shakin’?”

Sam frowns.

“This is one vivid dream,” Dean says.

Sam reaches over to him, touches his arm, and everything fades to black.

 

His mouth feels like something crawled in there and died. Scratch that, his whole _body_ feels like something crawled in there and died. Which… is kinda what happened. Huh. With difficulty, Dean peels his eyes open, but only one of them obeys. The other stays shut, gummy with sleep. The room is dark and cold. It comes as a surprise that his butt is parked on something hard and unyielding that _isn’t_ the hard and unyielding monstrosity of a couch in Crowley’s room.

So he’s not in the hotel.

Is he dreaming again? Or did Crowley zap him over to another nest and not tell him? Or maybe he’s just missing another chunk of memory. Definitely not the first time that’s happened. He feels too much for this to be a dream, anyway. His lips are cracked and dry, and his face itches. When was the last time he shaved, anyway? He goes to scratch his jaw, but he can’t move… because his arms are pinned down. Shackles? He’s fucking _shackled_ to a goddamn _chair_? His first instinct is to struggle, to yell, but the small glimmer of rational sense he still possesses tells him to shut up, to bide his time.

And so time passes. His mind wanders, though it never goes very far; it circles around the one constant of the past few weeks: he could really use a drink.

He looks around. The room he’s in is too dark to make out much of anything; the light source is somewhere outside, and filters in through the gaps around some sort of wall or door that seems to take up one entire side of the room. There doesn’t seem to be anything in this room save for the chair he’s chained to. He can make out the edge of a strange pattern on the floor, but it’s not something he’s familiar with.

He isn’t aware of the unusual quiet until it’s gone and replaced by hushed voices. They aren’t in his head. That’s a good sign. He also doesn’t think they’re in the room with him; it doesn’t _feel_ like anyone else is in here with him. There’s just the thing _in_ him. His ears strain, but he can only pick out wordless murmuring. The voices sound angry, their volume rising and falling as the argument continues. 

He’s not sure how much time passes before the voices abruptly stop, but it feels like both forever and an instant. A loud rattle and a squeal startles him into full alertness; the wall moves out into the space beyond, and light flows into the small room. Footsteps echo over the stone tiles, and Dean blinks at the intrusion of light and sound.

“Dean?”

“… Sammy?” His head pounds when he recognizes his brother’s voice. “This is one helluva dream.”

“You’re not supposed to be awake yet,” Sam says, confusion at the forefront over any concern. Dean’s eyes adjust to the sudden light in time to see Sam turn to the person next to him. “I thought you said this spell would knock him out for a few days.”

Dean squints at the figure next to his brother, and then squints some more. It’s not that it’s too _bright_ anymore, not exactly; it’s that the second person is familiar, but it’s impossible… The second person is shorter than Sam; in fact, he’s about Dean’s height, with a similar build to his own, with a startlingly familiar mop of hair. His voice rumbles out, mirroring Sam’s puzzlement at Dean having woken. 

Dean’s head swims, and it’s not entirely the alcohol still flowing through him. This is one fucked-up dream. It feels too real, but it can’t be. “Damn, I need a drink. You’d think dead people would be off-limits for curse-induced dreams, but _noo-oo-o-o_ , drag up everyone I ever got killed, why don’t you, you piece of shit steak knife? Why not throw my mom in here, too, huh?”

“Dean. You’re not dreaming.”

“‘Course I am. James is dead, and yet here he is. Any second now it changes to the part where I kill you both, over and over—stabbing and slicing and, ugh, trust me, it’s revolting—then I wake up, Crowley takes me to kill some more ‘cultists’—if they even _are_ cultists—and I drink until I pass out, and then I kill you guys some more in my dreams.”

“So that’s what he really had you doing,” Sam says. He sounds sad, unlike the usual Dream Sam, who always sounds disappointed. 

James steps forward and pulls at Dean’s eyelids, peering into Dean’s eyes until Dean jerks his head away. “What did Crowley do to you? Did he drug you? Curse you? Perhaps a mind control spell? I presume the alcohol is your own doing, because that doesn’t seem beneficial for Crowley.” Dream James wrinkles his nose like he can actually smell Dream Dean, which is kind of weird. Granted, this whole thing is frickin’ weird as hell. In the dreams he’s had lately, James never does much except look at him sadly with a bloody face. He certainly never _talks_ to Dean.

“Crowley never does anything that isn’t beneficial for himself,” Dean muses. 

Sam tugs James away from Dean, and they confer in low voices that carry across the small room, their faces mirror images of sympathy. They feel _sorry_ for him. Dean huffs and looks aside. 

“His condition is quite troubling,” James says. “I wish he would tell us what Crowley did. It would make it easier to help him.”

“Yeah, but look at him. I don’t think he’s going to be lucid for a while, Castiel,” Sam says.

“Castiel? Who the fuck is Castiel, and why is he wearing James? Why would I even make up a dumb name like that,” Dean says to no one in particular, since Dream James and Dream Sam are too busy talking _about_ him to talk _to_ him.

Meanwhile, they seem to have come to a decision regarding his _condition_. They cross the short distance back to his side.

“Dean, I know this must be very confusing for you. There isn’t time to explain everything now, but you should know that Castiel is my true name, and that Sam and I are here to help you.” James-slash-Castiel reaches out toward him.

Dean laughs coldly. “Thanks but no thanks. I don’t need help from anybody, ‘specially dead people.” Dean leans back as far as he can, which isn’t far, considering he’s still strapped to a chair. James-slash-Castiel’s fingers brush against Dean’s forehead, and a tingling warmth rushes through him, chasing the headache away, slaking his thirst. The dulling haze that has surrounded him and suffused his brain for weeks also fades away.

Two things happen simultaneously.

First, now-sober Dean realizes that this is definitely _not_ a dream. A friend he thought was dead is standing here in front of him and very much alive.

Second, now that the booze-induced haze is gone, the sharp bite of the blade’s hold on him is in full force. Dean gets _yanked_ back, far back, into his own head. It’s dark back here, and cold, and… kind of lonely. 

“Thank you, Aasimar,” Dean’s voice says.

James-slash-Castiel jerks away and shares a look with Sam. “Aasimar? He shouldn’t know that; I’ve never told him… ”

Sam returns the look, face crinkled up like he still doesn’t know what an Aasimar is, and they both turn to stare at Dean. Hey, if Dean were in charge of himself, he’d be shrugging at Sam, because he doesn’t know what the fuck who or what that is, either.

The thing wearing him seems to find him amusing; he can sense its idea of laughter as it focuses on him, hiding in the back of his own mind. Dean tries to shrink himself down, make himself smaller. The thing finds that funny, too, but then turns its attention elsewhere. It’s like the goddamn Eye of Sauron. Dean’s consciousness shivers.

“I can tell what you are just by your smell, little Celestial Being. I can tell how special you are to him; he was just eaten up with guilt over your supposed demise. It made it that much easier for me to corrupt him.”

Uh. That doesn’t sound good. 

But Dean doesn’t have time to wonder about it, because the thing wearing him flexes its magical muscles, and the restraints pop free. A veil drops down over his vision, dimming the surroundings. 

“What the fuck—his eyes are black!” Sam pulls a flask out from his jacket pocket and splashes it on Dean; other than making him wet, it has no effect, and frankly, he could do without being splashed in the face. He’s not steering the vehicle, and the thing wearing him doesn’t seem to care, so it doesn’t wipe off the holy water. 

What it does do is reach inside Dean’s jacket to pull out the blade, which crackles with purposeful energy. In the poorly-lit room, with Dean’s vision clouded by whatever happened to his body’s eyes, the blade looks jet black; it even darkens the air around it. The thing wearing him swings its laser focus onto Sam, and hatred and rage burn bright in its appraisal. 

“That slimy little summoner thought he could keep you and your brother apart, but here we are, together again. Dean and little Sammy, only… not so little. Dean sees you as a shorter, younger version of yourself. Imagine my surprise and delight to behold the true you. Magnificent! Dean is drawn to you. He’s very nearly consumed by his concern for your well-being; it feeds both his darkness and his light. It’s a very powerful bond, so powerful that I had to seek you out.” The thing wearing Dean advances on Sam while it talks, using Dean’s voice, but _not_ Dean’s voice. The cadence and tone are all wrong. The _words_ are all wrong. Dean doesn’t talk like this. He wishes it would stop. And it seems that now that the thing has what it wants, it doesn’t care about disguising its purpose from Dean any longer. Since they’re basically sharing a mind, Dean can see its intent clear as day. And Sam is in trouble.

_Get out, Sammy, run_ , he wants to say, but the thing wearing him doesn’t let him speak, and Sam—dumb, loyal Sam—stands his ground, completely unarmed _._ The thing wearing Dean lunges at Sam, who dances out of the way handily. James— _Castiel_ —holds his weird short sword defensively in front of himself, but also seems disinclined to use it as he circles around Not-Dean, despite Not-Dean’s wild slashes and swings with the cursed blade. The thing wearing him is primarily concerned with attacking Sam, but every time he moves close to Ja— _Castiel_ —it turns to attack him as well. 

From his position far back in his own mind, Dean watches the thing wearing him fight, and can’t help but be at least a little impressed at all parties. Sam and Castiel are well-trained and seasoned fighters, but Dean’s body has been specifically honed for this purpose since childhood. He has excellent instincts and fantastic reflexes, which are only augmented by the strange power of the thing occupying his body. From his vantage point, he can see that Sam and Castiel are attempting to maneuver themselves so that Castiel can grapple him from behind. It’s a neat plan, but it’s too bad it won’t work because the thing’s aware of it and countering their movements. Not-Dean parries Castiel, then feints at Sam, who lunges too far in—oh, but Sam was feinting, too, and now he’s trying to twist the blade out of Not-Dean’s grasp. 

Sam’s gamble had made himself vulnerable, though, and they’re now wrestling, a bad deal for Sam because of Not-Dean’s enhanced strength and speed. Before Castiel can get close enough to help, there’s a sickening crunch and a strangled cry from Sam, and in the back of his mind, Dean freezes in terror and rage. Sam disengages quickly and shuffles backward, cradling his right arm to his chest. His face is pinched and white, but determined, nonetheless. He just doesn’t know when to quit and save himself.

If Dean ever gets control of himself again, he’s going to destroy this fucking pig sticker even if he has to throw it in a goddamn volcano to do so.

But that was probably the wrong thing to think, because the thing turns its attention back to him. Time suddenly slows; his brain feels full to bursting. There’s just _too much_ in him, he can’t… The pressure ebbs and flows rhythmically. It’s _laughing_.

**_Do you truly not understand, Dean? I may have made suggestions, but ultimately, you are the one who chose this path. You are easily swayed, if one knows what makes you tick. I looked into your soul, and I saw what you tried so hard to hide._ **

_Oh, yeah? What’s that, my frilly pink panty collection?_

**_You joke, at such a time? You struggle to hide your resentment of little Sammy._ **

_What are you, high?_

**_Consider, Dean, that the reason you despise him so much is because of the responsibility you were made to bear._ **

_Uh, newsflash: I don’t hate Sam._

**_You do. Your soul is laid bare before me, and I see. You resent having spent your life in service to another. You wish to have control over your own destiny. That is what I am offering to you._ **

_Don’t make me laugh, I’m fuckin’ bossy as hell. Dude complains about it constantly, you’d think he was my slave or something._

**_You deliberately misunderstand. I know that you gave up_ everything _for him. You subsumed your entire personality into that of Sam’s Keeper. Your entire purpose in life has been and always will be that of serving your little brother._**

_Okay, first of all, I have a frickin’ fantastic personality, and second, did you not hear what I just said about being a bossy control freak?_

The thing in his head is just hitting its stride, however.

**_Sam needed to be sheltered from this cruel world, from the monsters both human and other-worldly; who was the one sheltering him, who bore the brunt of the miserable existence that was your childhood? Who sacrificed his own innocence so that Sam could continue on in ignorance?_ **

**_Your mother was so worried for you. She was so very concerned that you’d turn out weak and helpless. Why do you think she drove you relentlessly? Why do you think she had you build walls around your soul, hardened you, and honed you into a fighter? It’s what worked for her, after all._ **

_You leave my mother out of this. She’s got nothing to do with it._

**_That is simply not true. She prepared you for me._ **

**_And now the moment is upon us. It is up to you, Dean. Relinquish your fear and rise up out of the ashes of your subservience. You deserve to reach your full potential, but you_ must _destroy the symbol of your oppression. Destroy Sam, and you cease to be enslaved by your envy_.**

_No._

**_Dean, I agree: it is not fair. Sam was never as broken as you. Sam never had to build walls, and Sam never questioned his self-worth._ **

**_Sam does not wonder if he deserves to be loved, if he deserves to live, or if he deserves to be saved._ **

**_And as such, you envy him to your very core._ **

 

Dean yells hoarsely and lashes out with the blade. He doesn’t want to hurt Sam, _he doesn’t_ —he wants to hurt the blade, but he’s holding it. He can’t hurt it if he’s holding it. But he can’t drop it, either. His fingers curl around the grip so tightly his knuckles pop. Sam holds his wrist close to his body and ducks away from Dean’s wild swings, stumbling over his feet. It throws him out of Dean’s path, and the momentum carries Dean forward too far. He crashes into the wall; his elbow throbs, but the pain is nothing more than the baseline to the white-hot melody of the fire raging in his head.

Castiel pushes himself up from the floor and comes between them. He stands guard over Sam, who scoots away from Dean, boots scrabbling across the tile floor. Rage crescendos to a piercing shriek: Castiel the interfering do-gooder to the rescue once again. Actually, make that Castiel the liar, who weaseled his way into Dean’s family with trickery and, and… guile. Castiel the fucking _magic user._ Who the fuck does he think he is, waltzing in here like he can take care of Sam better than Dean can? He’s so fucking _righteous_ , throwing his spells around, trying to save Dean, trying to save Sam—but this is all his fault. It’s all Castiel’s fault, and he’s gonna take it out of his fucking hide.

Dean uses the wall to brace himself for his charge forward; he rushes down on Castiel, and the man tries to tackle him in a bruising hug, tries to force him down, but Dean throws off the hold and whirls into a different attack. He bears down on Castiel, hacking away with the blade like it was a sword, and Castiel scrambles to block the blows. He can’t keep this up against Dean’s repeated onslaught, not indefinitely. Something’s gotta give. And then it does: Castiel stumbles backward, his sword arm thrown wide, too wide to parry Dean’s slash. Too late, Dean catches the feint; with a flick of Castiel’s wrist the blade is gone.

His gaze listlessly follows the weapon as it arcs away and clatters to the floor; its loss doesn’t truly register until pain lances through him in sharp needles of fire that dance along every nerve ending in his body. Beneath that, there’s something else—an ache, a gaping hole in his chest pooling with black sludge—that’s his soul, he realizes. His soul is trying to fill in the cracks left by the blade. He stares down at himself as if he can see what’s going on inside as well as he can feel it.

And then sense returns.

He tried to kill Sam.

He tried to _kill Sam._ Did a fair job of it, too. That… that _thing_ tried to get him to murder his own brother, and for what? Some dumb power trip?

“Sammy?” he says. His throat feels like he gargled with gravel.

“I’m here.” Sam’s voice is high and thin, and laced with pain that he can’t disguise. He still tries, bless him. “I’m alright. I think I broke my hand. Are you… are you _you_?”

Apparently he was always him. There’s so much he needs to say. There’s _too_ much to say. How do you even begin to explain this to someone who means the world to you? 

“Whaddaya say our next stop is Mount Doom— _fuck!_ ” Dean claps his hands over his ears as a rumbling ringing peals in his head. Feels like he’s stuck inside a giant church bell. He sways, then falls to his knees.

**_Dean._ **

Shoulda known it wouldn’t be that easy.

_What do you want now?_

**_Walk over there and PICK ME UP. Do it now, or the bond will be severed._ **

Dean hesitates.

**_If you do not do this immediately, there is nothing I can do to save you. You will be lost to me._**

_Oh, what a terrible tragedy._

**_If that matters not to you, then consider that you will be lost to_ them _, to everything and everything you have ever known. Utterly and completely lost to time and memory._**

Dean stares down at his hands, which are now tremor-free. His headache is gone, and his mind is clearer than it's been in a while—weeks, probably. It’s nice. It’s really, really, nice. He’s not sure he deserves the reprieve. So maybe it _would_ be better if he just up and disappeared. It’d solve a few problems.

**_Dean. You are extremely uncooperative._ **

He’s startled out of his thoughts. _Yeah, well, you know what? I’d rather die and spend a thousand years roasting in hell than take orders from you, or go psycho and kill everyone I know, or whatever the fuck you got planned for me. So, you know what? Fuck off._

**_Very well. If Hell is your choice, Hell is what you’ll receive._ **

Dean thought he knew pain. He was wrong.


	14. Dead Boys Don't Cry

_Dark is the night and alone you will die  
_ _Break all the chains and wait for the time_

This is a crappy joint. Only one song plays over and over and over, and naturally, it’s Jefferson Starship. Dean sits at the bar, taps his fingers against the dark wood. There’s no fucking bartender in this place. 

A few minutes pass, probably, if he were to judge by the progression of the song, even though he’s listened to it so many times it all blurs together. It smells of old smoke in here, and he pats his jacket pocket, but that pack of cigarettes disappeared a while ago. He never bothered to buy another because alcohol worked better.

“Feel free to pour your own,” a voice says. “Addiction doesn’t exist here. Neither do bar tabs.”

Dean turns and takes in the man behind him. He’s short and bearded, with wavy brown hair. He’d say the guy is average-looking, except he can’t really seem to look at his face. He can tell that he has two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, but if you asked Dean to describe his eye color, whether his eyebrows were bushy, or what shape his nose was, he’d be at a loss. He stares at him probably much longer than what’s appropriate, but the dude doesn’t seem to mind; he seems uncomfortable, sure, but not, like, offended or anything.

“Oh. Um, thanks?” Dean says. He looks around, turning slowly, but wherever he is, isn’t where he was… he thinks. “Wasn’t I just…? I was somewhere else, wasn’t I?”

“Well, about that. You’ve kind of… passed on.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You died.”

Dean blinks. “And… this is Hell?”

The guy finally seems offended; he scoffs and sputters and crosses his arms. “Hell? You think this is _Hell?_ C’mon, it’s not that bad, is it?”

Dean rolls his eyes and looks up toward the ceiling, where a little speaker with a decidedly tinny sound quality spits out _Miracles_. “Dude, Jefferson Starship. They’re terrible.”

The guy tries to placate him with his hands spread out between them. Like Dean would rush him or something. “Alright, alright. I guess I can see how the theme music was lost on you. But believe me, there’s a purpose. There’s always a purpose.”

“Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“Uh, well… you can call me Chuck.”

“Okay, Chuck. Here’s the deal. I don’t know what your game is, but you put me back wherever you found me, or I’ll kill you.”

Chuck laughs, a little nervously, but it doesn’t seem like he’s intimidated by Dean. He just seems like a nervous sort of guy. 

“Oh, I don’t think you want to go back where I found you.”

Dean bristles. “And why the hell not? I was just with my brother and Ja—I mean, Castiel.”

“Yeah, about that. I wasn’t joking when I said you died, Dean. You were damned by the blade when it bonded with you, and when you ultimately refused it, it severed the bond out of spite. Your refusal was actually quite impressive—beautiful, even, in an epic storytelling kind of way.”

“Okay…”

“When you’re damned and a bond like that is severed, you die. And if you die while you’re damned…” 

Dean’s expression clears. “Oh, so, what? I’m about to go to Hell? Are you here to ferry me across or something?” Dean walks his fingers across air, and the man smiles.

“No, no, not exactly. Did you hear the thing I said about the song?”

Dean squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his temples; even though he doesn’t have a headache, he feels like he should. Actually… he can’t _feel_ anything: no headache, no excruciating pain from when Castiel disarmed him. So yeah, this probably isn’t Hell, despite the crappy service.

“How about you just be straight with me about what the fuck’s going on.”

“I’m trying to! You’re very… difficult. He was right about that,” Chuck says in a lower voice, probably meant only for himself. Dean hears it anyway.

“I’m difficult? _I’m_ difficult? _Who_ the—no, no—you know what, never mind. No more stalling, just spit it out, man, jeez!”

“I’m God.”

Dean doesn’t say anything, just stares at him with his lips pursed.

“Well, that went over a little better than expected,” Chuck says.

“Oh, I’m still waiting for the punchline.”

“Well, uh, okay. Anyway. So, I’m God. You died and were bound for Hell, but your friend Castiel requested a Miracle on your behalf. I’m not even sure how he managed that. It’s a very advanced spell. He must’ve been desperate, but, uh… anyway. He requested my assistance, and I rather like him, so I decided to hear him out. Turns out he wants you Saved and Resurrected.”

“And… you’re going to do that? Is that why we’re talking?” 

“I haven’t decided yet. Him, I like. You, I don’t know all that well.”

“What, you’re not omnipresent or omnipotent or whatever?”

“No, not really. I mean, I could be. It’s too much work, though. People always jabbering at you with their prayers, always asking for things: promotions, boats, the ‘girl of their dreams’. Besides, you’re not a follower of mine. Heck, you’re not a follower of any God, Good _or_ Evil. So, I guess you could say that we’re here because I wanted to get to know you and decide if it’s worth my while to bring you back.”

“Well, you should know that I make absolutely terrible first impressions.”

“Yes, Castiel mentioned that. He asked me to look past that and see the ‘real you, deep inside’.”

“He said _what?_ And by the way, that sounds like utter bullshit.” Dean forces out a small laugh.  
“It kinda does, doesn’t it?” Chuck nods conspiratorially. “He can be very melodramatic about the weirdest things. But he’s not wrong. You live a very different life on the inside. So, Dean. Tell me: why do you deserve to live?”

Dean shrugs. “Uh. Not sure what you wanna know. I’m nothing special. Just a guy.”

Chuck nods again, a finger over his lips, thoughtful. It’s like he agrees, like he believes it, too, like Dean has nothing to say that could change his mind.

Dean frowns. He feels that itch in his legs, the need to move. It’s a funny feeling, considering he’s dead. But he gives in to the impulse and takes a few steps, then turns back to face Chuck. God. Whatever.

“I mean, Sam and I, we got important work to do. There’s this cult, right, and they’re, uh… well, they’re raising the dead, they got some evil diabolical plan to take over the world, something like that, okay, and we gotta stop them.” 

“Hmmm,” Chuck says, still nodding.

“I mean, they _are_ evil. Right?”

“‘Evil’ is a very divisive word. Let’s look at it another way. How many innocent lives have they taken or destroyed?”

Dean has nothing to say to that.

“The answer is ‘none’, right? They haven’t killed anyone?”

“Look, I have no idea if they’ve killed innocent people or not. The point is, they will. It's just a matter of time. They almost killed Castiel, they tried to kill us—”

“We can compare that to your body count of twelve, much of which you suspect were innocent bystanders that Crowley corralled for you—”

“Now hold on—”

“—and some would use that number to argue that _you_ are evil.”

“Hey, I am _not_ evil. I made mistakes, alright, but everything that I did was necessary at the time. A means to an end. I didn’t see that I had a choice. And those people… It was just a feeling, I don’t know. If they really were innocent, Crowley will get what’s coming to him. And I’ll take mine when the time comes—just, not yet. We have to fix this.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Dean. I’m not saying that you are definitively evil; I’m saying that things are sometimes more than they seem. I’m saying that your moral absolutes—the way you see things as black and white—help no one, especially not yourself. If you judge yourself by the same standards you judge this cult, you’re just as guilty, if not more so. Yet you say that you’re not evil, that you only did what you had to.”

“Alright, what does this have to do with anything? That cult still needs to be stopped, right?”

“Yes— _if_ they’re doing what you think they’re doing,” Chuck says, his expression indecipherable. He changes the subject abruptly before Dean can respond. “Why you? Why are _you_ the one who always has to save the world? And I don’t mean ‘you and your brother’. The two of you might work together, but this is all personal to you. Sam’s reasons are different.”

“They can’t find anyone else dumb enough?” Dean quips.

Chuck merely _hmmmmms_ again, with another maddening head nod. Dean’s palms start to sweat, and that’s another fucking thing that should not happen when you’re dead.

“Whaddaya want from me, man? 

Chuck smiles, and it looks a little sad. “I want to know who you are, Dean. I want to know what you believe in and what you want to live for.”

Dean groans. “I don’t know, _god_! Uh, not _you_ God, just like, the general ‘oh, god’.”

“Are you taking my name in vain?”

“ _Really_?”

Chuck is silent.

“Alright, look. Fine, I fucked up. That’s what I do. I fuck everything up, okay? That what you wanna hear? I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, but I still gotta take care of Sam, still gotta take care of whatever shit gets thrown at us. This… mess, this fucking necromancer cult. We just stumbled on it, but we helped Cas and we got involved, so, yeah, this is what I gotta take care of now.”

“That’s it? That’s what you care about, Dean?”

“Well, yeah. Like I said, I fucked up and I gotta fix it. I don’t really know why. I just know that I have to.”

“And after it’s fixed?”

“I dunno, man. I guess I don’t really have the luxury of thinking that far ahead.”

“Ever consider that that could be part of the problem?”

Dean laughs, and it sounds tired even to himself. “Yeah, Chuck. The thought has occurred to me from time to time.”

Chuck’s smile drops and his expression becomes stern. 

“Dean, it’s admirable that you see something wrong and you want to make it better. That’s a darn good quality to have, and frankly, I think you should be proud of that. It led you to take care of Sam for all these years, it led you to save my cleric when you didn’t know anything about him, and it led you to take on his cause for your own. You care; you believe in what’s right and what’s good, and I think that’s wonderful.”

He looks at Dean closely: he walks up and gets right in his face. Dean’s reminded of when he first met Castiel, when he was trying to goad him, intimidate him into divulging all his secrets. In hindsight, he realizes it didn’t really work on Castiel. But then, Dean isn’t exactly fucking _God_. He swallows around a lump in his throat and waits for Chuck to hurry up and get to the point.

“What’s not so good is that you think every problem is yours to solve, that you think everything that goes wrong is somehow your fault. And you’ve bought into the notion that you deserve to be bad as penance—for things out of your control, mind you—and that sullying yourself is the logical progression in your debt payment. As such, you’ve willingly done very bad things, and you’re perfectly happy throwing away your life—and your eternal soul—for the mission. Why is that?”

Dean doesn’t answer, but instead becomes fascinated with his boots.

“You think—correct me if I’m wrong—you think that, what, lifting others up while you cast yourself down will erase the guilt? That’s pretty much the _opposite_ of how most people go about redeeming themselves. You know this, right?”

“You sayin’ I shouldn’t feel guilty? After all the shit I did?”

Chuck shakes his head, but finally backs up a step before he spins around toward the bar. He shuffles around for a moment then turns back, this time with a bottle of beer in hand.

“Congratulations, you’ve driven God to drink.” He pops the cap off and takes a long swig, then wipes his sleeve across his mouth. “If you want to stop feeling guilty, you could learn the difference between things that should incur guilt and things that shouldn’t, and then just stop doing the things that incur guilt. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about your mother, about what you had to do. That’s it, isn’t it? The weight, the reason you imprison yourself? She was already dead, Dean: her soul had already passed on to Heaven, and the thing that came back wasn’t really her. You destroyed an abomination, a creature that would have killed you and your brother, and moved on to kill a lot of others. This is one of those instances that does not require your guilt.”

Dean scoffs, but there’s a stupid stinging prickle in his eyes, so he blinks it away. 

Chuck sighs.

“Look, I can’t magic-touch you and fix all your head stuff. It just doesn’t work that way. If you don’t want to be ‘like this’, you have to work at it. Personally, I think it’s worth it. You’ll probably get a lot more pleasure out of life if you stop shouldering responsibility that isn’t yours. I also strongly encourage you to really consider the nature of good and evil, and move past the surface understanding you have of those things. Now, to that end, I have an idea. In fact, it’s one of my conditions for your Salvation and Resurrection. I’d like you to become my Paladin.”

“I’m sorry, you want me to do what now? You realize this, this… _plan_ of yours goes against like, ninety percent of my personality, right? Dude, Paladins don’t get to have any fun. They’re uptight self-righteous do-gooders. _Everyone_ knows this.” Probably no sex allowed, either, knowing his luck.

Chuck rears back. “Hey, woah, wait a minute! I don’t require celibacy. Where did you get that idea?”

“Get out of my head, Chuck.” Dean pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s really fucking stupid having a conversation like this with someone who can _read fucking minds_.

“Well, we’re already both in your head, so it would be kind of hard to get out of your head _and_ finish this conversation. Anyway, that’s not important. The main takeaway is that you need to figure your shit out, and this is a tool to help you. You’re just so uncertain about so many things. If your life plan includes celibacy, then hey, more power to you. And if it doesn’t, that’s fine, too. Oh, and also, please stop with the murder. That’s a biggie for me.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t too thrilled about that to begin with. You gotta know I was desperate, man, right? The thing with them killing Cas—well, actually, _now_ I know he wasn’t killed—but he was gone, and they hurt Bobby—okay, well, I guess Crowley’s probably the one who hurt Bobby, not the cult itself…” Dean rubs at his temples and sighs loudly. “Fuck, alright, I see where you’re coming from. I made some shit choices, mostly based on bad info, but still. I’m done with that now. I swear. No more creepy, possessed daggers for me. Scout’s honor.”

Chuck purses his lips. “You weren’t a Boy Scout.”

“Can’t we do this without the whole Holy Warrior shtick?”

“What’s the matter, Dean? I thought you were all about sacrificing what you want in order to achieve an end?”

“God, you’re annoying.”

Chuck smiles beatifically.

“ _Fine_.”

“Here, you’ll need this.” Chuck tucks something cold and metal into his hand, but before Dean can take a look at it, Chuck rests his hand on Dean’s shoulder and gives it a light, fatherly squeeze. “My final word of advice for you, Dean? Pour your heart into something or someone that’ll give back.”

 

Something dark and uniform fills his field of vision; he blinks a few times before the world starts to come into focus. He must make a noise, because suddenly Sam pops into view, hovering a few inches above him. The dog follows suit and pants into his face. (Ugh, dog breath.) So that means the dark grey thing is the ceiling, and he’s lying on the floor in the room, the one where… where he tried to kill Sam, and where Cas stopped him. The room where he… holy shit, he _died_. Unless it was all a dream. He thinks for a second, takes stock of himself. Nope, not a dream: deep down, way fucking deep down, a little tickle in the back of his mind, he can feel what Chuck gifted to him. He can feel _himself_ , too, the weight of his body and the awareness of his parts—so different from the strange ephemeral quality of the bar—and the strange figurine Chuck handed to him right before— He shakes his head; coming back to life was _strange_. He can think about it later. Or, you know, never.

“Heya, Sammy.” His voice is deeper than normal, raspy, like he swallowed a lungful of dirt and leaves. His mouth tastes like dirt, too. It’s fucking weird. He coughs weakly.

“Dean.” Sam’s face crumples as he collapses on Dean and crushes him in a hug. “Dude, I can’t believe it worked.”

What worked? Oh, right, Castiel did a spell thingy. Unbidden, _Miracles_ pops back into his head.

“Dude, you’ll never believe it. I was in… I guess it was Purgatory, but it was a crummy bar, and I met God, and _man_ , he’s a nerdy beardy dude,” Dean says. Sam frowns, leans in real close, and pulls Dean’s eyelids up one at a time to inspect his pupils.

“The fuck are you—I didn’t hit my head, you fucker.” 

Sam ignores him. “That’s great, Dean, and I can’t wait to hear all about it, but we gotta take care of your injuries first.”

Injuries? Dean rises up onto his elbows and looks down at himself. His shirt is shredded, and jagged lacerations cover his chest, concentrated in the area around his heart. Now that he’s aware of it, it hurts, sharp and throbbing. The blood is tacky and dark, almost black. He must have bled a _lot_ , judging from the wide swath of dark, dark red leading down his torso and onto his legs. Well, he’s definitely gonna need an entirely new wardrobe at this point. Pretty much everything he owns is covered in blood. Everything except the suit Crowley gave him.

Footsteps echo through the outer chamber, and Castiel enters the room and stops dead when he sees Dean awake. Or, more likely, he’s surprised Dean’s alive. He just kinda stands there and stares, a look which Dean returns somewhat wryly. Given that Dean went completely berserk and tried to kill him, he can’t imagine why Castiel extended any effort into having him brought back. And how the hell do you tell someone you’re sorry for something like _that_?

“So… I guess you’re not dead after all,” Dean says, just as the silence is about to move past ‘slightly awkward’ into ‘weird and uncomfortable’ territory.

“And I suppose you are no longer dead,” Castiel returns. He’s clothed in a neat suit, though the jacket is off, his tie is loosened, and the sleeves of his crisp button-down are rolled up. It’s not as well-tailored as Crowley’s, but it’s far and above what Castiel had been wearing when they first met him, even disregarding that other suit had been torn to shreds. It’s a good look for him, Dean decides, then snaps his eyes away from the cut of Castiel’s pants to meet his eyes. 

“And you’re also not _James_. Were you gonna tell us about that eventually, or…?”

Castiel has the good grace to look embarrassed. “Let’s take care of you first, and then I will explain myself—”

“Nah, man, I got it. Watch this.” Dean dramatically touches his finger to his chest. It’s like when Sam heals him: warmth floods through him, and everything knits itself back together. It feels as weird as it always does, and leaves the same tingle behind in its wake; it’s just _more_ weird, because he’s doing it to himself. 

“How did—what the hell? Dude!” Sam says, sputtering in surprise or indignation, Dean’s not sure which. 

Castiel simply stands there, hovering over Dean, one hand extended and stuck mid-air in preparation to heal him, a weirded-out look in his eyes. Dean is still watching Castiel look at him when something wet hits him in the face. He glares at Sam and spits out holy water.

“What?” Sam says. “You didn’t know any spells before. I was just making sure.”

“It’s me, you jerk. Want me to do the silver test, too, or can we move past this?”

Sam sits back on his heels and waves him on magnanimously. With one last glare at him, Dean turns back to Castiel.

“Okay, first. What’s the deal with the weirdo name? Is Cass-tee-ell some church thing?” he says, drawing out the syllables. Castiel’s brows snap together and he gets that little crease in his forehead that mean’s he’s annoyed.

“The choice to give you a false name was made long before I knew whether to trust either of you. Castiel is my Aasimar—my Celestial—true name. Very few people know it, because it is a vulnerability. Therefore, I often go by James. If it makes any difference, I greatly disliked withholding that information from you both.” He fiddles with a shirt sleeve as he talks, unrolling it and then rolling it back up. He smooths the material out. “James is actually my given name, so if we want to be technical about it, I wasn’t being entirely dishonest.”

Dean laughs, but sobers quickly.

“Hey, look—I know I was real harsh with you back then, and normally I’m really not cool with people hiding stuff from me. Us. But, uh, that doesn’t seem all that important right now, y’know, all things considered. ‘Sides, you were just protecting yourself. You had no real reason to trust us. Uh. Anyway. Guess that makes it my turn, then. So… long story short, while I was dead I had a conference call with God, and, uh, he made me a Paladin. Said it was a condition of my being resurrected.”

“Oh,” Sam and Castiel say in unison, then both fall silent.

The dog barks excitedly. At least _he’s_ happy about it.

The silence stretches on a little too long.

“A Paladin? Don’t you think that’s a little… much… for someone like you?” Sam finally says.

A stone drops into the pit of Dean’s stomach. “‘Someone like me?’ Gee, why don’t you tell me what you _really_ think.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Save it. We all know I’m a fuckup. Don’t apologize for saying what’s going through your head. At least you’re being honest. I guess.” 

“Dean, that’s not—Dean, listen! Paladins are self-sacrificing and self-righteous, and they live by a very rigid set of codes, and if there’s anything you don’t need in your life, it’s more of that. I just think this is a bad fit for you—”

“God seemed to think it was a good idea, and I mean, not like I worship the guy or anything, but he probably knows more about it than _you_ do. So just stop, okay? And Cas, you gonna sit there, or you got something to add?”

Castiel’s gaze flits over Sam’s miserable expression and then comes back to Dean. He clasps his hands behind his back and chuckles a little nervously. “Oh, um. I wouldn’t presume to know what’s best for you.”

“Great. Fantastic. Now, someone wanna fill me in on what you guys’ve been up to, or you wanna keep taking potshots at my miraculous resurrection?”

 

It turns out Cas’s church is in St. Louis. After Sam had kidnapped him from Crowley’s hotel—wait, back up. Crowley had stashed Sam, along with most of their belongings, in another hotel across town and had him doing research on the cult and some other unrelated stuff, probably to keep him busy and away from Dean. The downside to that, at least from Crowley’s perspective, was that hired goons are not usually as diligent as their employers, and as such, Sam was able to sneak in some side projects, too. One of the first things he did was contact Pastor Jim; Pastor Jim, who, naturally, _had_ heard of a church that safeguarded dangerous artifacts. Because of course. 

Sam contacted the church, told some bigshot there the whole sordid tale, the bigshot was all ‘oh no, not an evil cult! Oh no, not our Jamesy!’ and happily disgorged Cas’s entire history with the church. Apparently, that word vomit landslide included Cas’s fucking secret name, because he and this Balthazar dude are besties or whatever. Anyway, so, Sam, having most of Dean’s stuff, eventually found the Sending wand in the bottom of Dean’s bag—note to self, find out what the fuck Sam was doing in the bottom of _his_ duffle bag—and used it (in conjunction with Cas’s super-duper secret name) to find Cas where he’d gotten stuck on the Celestial plane.

At least now Dean knows why the Sending never worked for him: having Cas’s real name probably would have given the spell enough juice to transcend planes.

Anyway. When Cas was recovered enough to pop back onto _this_ plane of existence, he and Sam started plotting out a way to save Dean, because apparently everyone knew that Dean needed saving, except for Dean. They even dragged Bobby back into it (which, fine, was probably a good thing, since it was Bobby’s idea to kidnap him).

Which brings him back to where his mind first started wandering.

Sam had figured out where Crowley was keeping Dean, escaped, and stolen him from Crowley’s hotel, because Sam is apparently an unstoppable badass. He brought Dean, drunk off his ass and barely conscious, to a holding room in Cas’s church. A safe place, where Sam could meet up with Cas and together they’d save Dean with the power of love or whatever. Problem was, neither Sam nor Cas nor even Bobby had any clue what was actually wrong with Dean, so they didn’t know how to fix him. Which is why all hell broke loose. 

It’s just as well, though. Everything seems to have worked out okay for once. The blade is safely locked away in Cas’s church, they’re warded with new obfuscation spells against the cult _and_ against Crowley, and Dean’s back, better than ever, rarin’ to go gank—a sharp pain _pings_ against his skull, and it’s probably exactly how a divine finger flick to the forehead would feel—fine, okay: rarin’ to go _stop_ these evil sons of bitches before they cause more mayhem with whatever the shit they’re doing.

Which brings them to _now_ , the point in time where they really have to figure out what the damn cult is actually doing, and then actually stop them.

Apparently without murdering any of the remaining cultists.

There really can’t be _that_ many of them left, though; Crowley (and by extension, Dean) was fairly thorough.


	15. Stripped

_Let me hear you speaking  
_ _Just for me_

“Bobby’ll be here by tonight if all goes according to plan,” Sam says as soon as he gets off the phone. By ‘according to plan’, of course, they mean not getting slammed into by another truck.

“Fantastic. He bringing his library?” Dean fastens his shirt cuff. He looks up to see Sam watching him with an amused eye. “What? All my other clothes are soaked in blood.”

“Don’t know about the library, but Rufus is bringing him down before he heads off to work another case.”

Dean adjusts his tie. “Jesus, haven’t seen Rufus in forever. Think he’s still mad about the thing with the thing?”

Sam stares at him, brow creased.

“You know? The thing?” Dean gestures. “From when we were kids?”

“Dude, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Sam frowns and tucks his phone away in his back pocket.

A soft knock sounds on the door between rooms, interrupting Dean’s reminiscence. It opens to admit Cas. He stops on the threshold of their adjoining rooms to stare at Dean, who, for the _last time_ , is wearing the only clean clothes he has. This is the _only reason_ he’s wearing the suit, dammit.

Cas smirks. “Nice outfit.”

“Shaddup,” Dean replies.

Cas shrugs, but Dean’s more interested in figuring out what’s going through Sam’s mind as his brother looks between him and Cas several times in quick succession, a little smile playing on his lips.

“Snap out of it, Sammy. We got work to do.” Dean haphazardly bundles up his ruined clothes, and something falls out of his inner jacket pocket _._ It lands near Sam’s giant feet with a soft _thunk_. “Oh, shit, I totally forgot about that!”

“What is it?” Sam asks as he picks up the battered journal.

“We don’t have to wait for Bobby! We—you gotta look at this. It’s a spy journal thingy Crowley gave me, we used it to ferret out the cult’s little hidey holes. So, um, basically, Crowley is in some rival cult, and they’ve been, like, feuding forever. So Crowley’s group had a spy in Meg’s group, or a couple of spies, because the entries go back over sixty years. Anyway, it doesn’t make a whole lotta sense to _me,_ but I bet _you_ can figure it out, yeah?”

Sam flips through the book, stopping at the last entry. “Hunter’s Moon. Think that’s the ‘when’ for the big ritual all this has been leading up to? That gives us—” he fiddles around on his phone for a few moments “—just over a week. It doesn’t say _what_ it is, though. Be nice to know what they’re trying to accomplish.”

“Well, I mean, we still have a ways to go. But we got this, we got Cas’s church library, plus Bobby, so that’s pretty good, right?”

Sam just stares at him blankly.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just can’t remember the last time you were so excited to research a case,” Sam says. “It’s too bad God didn’t give you any more information. We could’ve used the head start.”

“Well. He seems like the hands-off type of douchey god. Wants us to figure it out for ourselves and all that crap. Sorry, Cas,” Dean adds when he sees that Cas has stiffened up. “I know you, like, worship the guy, but he’s kind of a dick.”

Cas glowers at him. “He brought _you_ back to life. But setting aside your personal feelings for God, Dean, I’m not sure how useful my Church will be. We don’t actively work against other organizations. We try to restrict our efforts toward the collection and keeping of dangerous artifacts, like that dagger of yours—”  
  
“Ain’t _my_ dagger. Thing’s fucking creepy.” Dean shudders. He turns toward the mirror to fuss with his tie some more. It seems tight.

“—My point being, we have more information about the objects than we do the people that used them.”

“Well, we use that info, then. We figure out what all the stolen artifacts and relics do, and then we’ll have a better idea of what the cultists are doing.”

Done futzing around with his tie, Dean turns around, only to see Cas’s head jerk up from wherever he’d been staring. Cas has a weird look on his face and a flush starts creeping up his neck; his eyes dart between the floor and then the wall, refusing to meet Dean’s. Sam tries not to laugh, and fails miserably. Dean twists around like a dog chasing his tail. “What, is there something on my ass? You shitheads put a ‘kick me’ sign on my back? The fuck are you laughing at?”

Sam laughs so hard he doubles over.

“Is it the suit? Fuck you, I _told_ you these are the only clothes I have, you asshole.” Now Cas is laughing, too. Frigging great. Dean pouts. “You guys are dicks.”

Sam heaves a few deep breaths and straightens himself out. He wipes his eyes. “Hooooo, wow. Haven’t laughed like that in ages.”

“Still don’t know what’s so fucking funny, Samantha.”

Sam darts a sidelong glance at Cas, who again stares fixedly at the floor. “It’s nothing. We ready to go back to the church and hit the books, or what?”

 

“The relic that I was attempting to recover from Meg is fairly powerful, and quite horrifying.” Cas’s finger rests on the page of the ledger he’s studying, and he frowns in concentration. His hair is all fluffed up from him running his hands through it for the better part of the afternoon. It’s really all kinds of adorable.

“It’s called the Chalice of Apollyon, and it allows the bonded user to commune with the demonic entity Apollyon—”

“Guess that explains the name,” Dean says, but Cas ignores him.

“—and once bonded, Apollyon can scry the location and surroundings of the user.”

“That name doesn’t sound familiar,” Sam says. He clacks around on his laptop for a few moments before making a soft noise of satisfaction. “Ah! So get this. It says here that Apollyon is also known as Abaddon, the ‘Destroying Angel of the Abyss’.”

Dean nods. “Sounds familiar, but I don’t remember why. It’s probably important, knowing our luck.”  
“Let’s come back to it,” Sam says. He scribbles something down in his notebook and looks back to Cas expectantly.

“Um, well. There’s more. The Chalice has a dual purpose. It also collects—if you, um… ” Cas clears his throat. When he continues, his voice is rough and husky. “It consumes, uh, Celestial blood or Angelic grace, and the more it consumes, the more powerful it grows. This power is mainly used to amplify raising and summoning rituals.”

“Holy shit!” Sam jumps up and paces around the library. “Celestial blood—so _that’s_ why they wanted you! They needed your blood to power that thing up, so they could raise all those fucking zombies!”

“ _Sam._ Take a chill pill, man. Dude’s a little freaked out,” Dean says, and Sam stops pacing.

“Shit, sorry, Cas. You okay?”

Castiel looks at each brother in turn. He seems a little pale, but otherwise not terrible. He forces out a laugh. “It’s a rather unwelcome revelation, but it does explain a few things that I’d been wondering about for quite some time.” 

Dean taps his fingers on the table. It’s a start, but it feels like they’re still missing something. Sure, they needed Cas’s special blood for the chalice to help raise the zombies, but why did they need to raise the zombies if they haven’t done anything with them yet? He gives himself a mental shake. They just need to get more info about this Hunter’s Moon ritual, that’ll probably fill in the blanks. With a sigh, he picks up another book and cracks it open.

 

Dean frowns at the peeling laminate of the tabletop, ignoring Sam’s sharp look. Instead, he continues drumming his fingers along the surface. He’s bored, because this is boring. Also, he might be a little bit tense. Sam’s had that look on his face for the past twenty minutes, the one that reeks of sharing and caring, and Dean has no buffer because Cas has sequestered himself in one of the pastoral offices with Balthazar, and they’ve been in there for at least half an hour. Judging from the ebb and flow of their voices, they’re having a heated discussion. Dean wishes Cas’d stayed out in the church library, and not entirely because of the way Sam corners him at the library table.

“Are we going to talk about what happened?”

Ah. Here it comes.

“Whaddaya mean, what happened? I told you, my clothes are completely trashed. I _have_ to wear this suit until we have time to go be teenage girls at the mall.” Dean flashes a tight, completely fake, shit-eating grin. He knows it’s not going to accomplish anything but annoy his brother, but hey, if that’s the only option he has available, he’s gonna take it.

Sam’s mouth compresses into a thin, unhappy line. “Dean.”

“What?”

So he’s stalling. Big deal. Dean sighs and fidgets with the book in front of him. In the face of Sam’s persistent hug-it-out stare, he slams the book shut and shoves it across the table. It slides to a stop against a disordered stack of papers near Sam’s elbow.

“Alright, fine. I guess we’re going there, then. You wanna know what was going through my head? I like having a purpose, Sam. I _need_ to have a purpose.” _I don’t have anything else_ remains unsaid.

Sam sits quietly for a moment, but whether he’s thinking about what Dean had said or waiting for him to say more is unclear. Finally, after some lip-chewing, he speaks. “I think it’s more than that.”

“Oh, you do, do you? And what do _you_ know, you overgrown tree?”

“Fuck you, Dean. We’re worried about you. You _died._ We weren’t sure we’d get you back. But just because you’re alive again doesn’t mean that whatever the hell caused you to go off the reservation like that in the first place is all hunky-dory now. Something is going on with you, and that’s why you went off on this half-baked plan. A plan that, might I add, led to you being taken over by a cursed blade. You killed people, Dean. You nearly killed Cas, _and_ me. That’s not the brother I know and love, but apparently you have shit going on in there—” Sam gestures at Dean’s head “—that can lead to this kind of situation. So, yes, I think it’s more than you needing to have something to do.”

“And thank you for your continued support,” Dean mutters.

“I know you, Dean. You’re my brother, and we’ve been doing this together for a long time. Yeah, you’re stubborn and you’re bossy, but you usually aren’t dumb enough to trust someone _Bela_ recommends. So what gives?” Sam waits a microsecond, but then just plows ahead before Dean can even formulate a thought in his defense. “You’d never heard of Crowley before this whole business, and you hate Bela.”

Dean snaps his fingers. “That’s it! Fucking _Crowley_! He said the cultists ‘traverse the Abyss’ in some sort of ritual or trial, right, but they actively try to be corrupted, to make contact with the demonic entities there. The original group had these trials that you had to pass to successfully move up in the ranks, and then the cult that was left after the massacre changed things up. I bet you a chicken dinner it’s no coincidence that this chalice thingy has something to do with a demon from the Abyss and the cult that stole it performs rituals that go there to receive demonic influence.”

He watches Sam struggle with his desire to go all-in Dr. Phil versus the desire to figure out this fucking cult mess, and apparently the cult wins.

“Fine. But we’re not done here.” Sam starts typing away madly.

“What else did Crowley say about it…?” Dean frowns as he attempts to recall that early conversation. It had been weeks ago, and it seems he hadn’t been paying very close attention. Of course, there’d been that whole business with that fucking blade and all the murder and shit, so it’s not really surprising that one conversation is proving difficult to bring to mind.

“Don’t strain yourself, I’m googling rituals and trials having to do with this Abyss. Think ‘Abyssal Plane’ is at all related?”

Dean shrugs, not caring that Sam doesn’t see the gesture. His gaze had wandered over to the closed office door where Cas and Balthazar’s voices have gotten loud again. He jumps in his seat as the door bangs open, and before he can pretend he was looking somewhere else, Cas storms out and down the hall. Balthazar lurks in the office doorway, staring after Cas’s retreating figure with a frown etched deeply on his features. Dean’s up and out of his chair before he even realizes it. 

 

He finds Cas in the chapel, sitting in a pew near the front of the nave. He’s hunched down and staring at his feet with his head cupped in his hands. This is the first time Dean’s been in this part of the church, and he feels awkward about it despite having actually spoken to God, something these religious yahoos probably haven’t done. Stained glass windows line the sides of the building, and brightly colored splotches of color distort Cas’s profile in a sad mockery of cheerfulness. Remnants of incense lay heavy in the stuffy stillness, and his brain helpfully dredges up scent memories of blood and decay because it’s too similar to the smell from the mausoleum. He forces himself to look at Cas, to focus on his friend.

“Hey, man. Everything okay?”

Dean internally groans because, obviously, everything is _not_ okay. Cas heaves a sigh; a tired, heavy, world-weary sigh, and Dean feels it down to his core.

“Right there with ya. Um, so, there anything I can do?”

Cas ignores him for so long Dean’s about to give up and rejoin his nosy brother, but then Cas shifts slightly in the pew. The fabric of his slacks rustles against the smooth wood when he makes space next to him. Taking that as an invitation, Dean sits.

“Do you remember how I thought Meg seemed familiar?” Cas says.

Dean makes a noncommittal noise. He still isn’t too proud of how he reacted to that news.

“Apparently she used to be a member of the clergy of this church, in a temporary capacity, much like I was. Balthazar and I were discussing all the happenings since the Chalice was stolen, and he thought she sounded familiar, as well. At least in her tone and temperament, if not physical description. We looked through the church documents and yearbooks, but the Meg that I saw in Madison did not resemble anyone who had participated in this church. The person who best matched was a young blond woman by the name of Margaret, a visiting cleric who spent several months here a few years ago. She used to call me Clarence, but I didn’t connect—We were… fairly close at the time, but I never suspected—I’m so embarrassed, Dean. I’m supposed to be good at discerning lies and ulterior motives, and yet I never had a clue about this woman and her deceptions. Her disguise was exceptional to the point it must have been magic-based. If that is the case, who knows how many disguises she has, or how long she’s been spying on me.”

Dean doesn’t know what to say to that, so he nods slowly while his head spins. It would explain a lot, he supposes. How she knew him, how he knew her but didn’t. Yet… something about it doesn’t sit right with him, and he’s not sure why that is. He suddenly remembers how angry he’d been with Cas at the time, but now he has nothing but sympathy for him, having been in somewhat of a similar situation with Crowley. 

“You trusted her?”

Head still lowered, Cas nods. 

“And you were… _close_ -close?” Dean has trouble getting the words out, but he has to know if the reason Cas is so upset by this is the reason he suspects. Unconsciously, he starts to mirror Cas’s posture, elbows propped on his splayed knees while he stares at the floor between his feet. Cas doesn’t reply, but that in itself is an answer.

“And, what, she just up and left, or…?”

“I don’t believe she ever intended to stay long. Her stated purpose for visiting was research.” Cas laughs, a bitter bark of expulsed air that seems as self-deprecating as it is angry. “Now that I have this knowledge floating around in my head, I can’t determine whether she was researching me, or the Chalice. I’m not even sure which possibility should bother me more.”

Dean gets it. Crowley’s attentions to him were creepy and off-putting, but in some weird fucking way, also flattering. He spends the majority of his life being unimportant, blending into the background unless he makes a concerted effort to be charming, and that still only garners a short-term, superficial interest. Crowley hadn’t cared about him and only wanted to use him, true, but his interest had stemmed from what Dean could do for him, and was related to Dean’s intrinsic qualities (even if only his worst ones) instead of his looks. That’s probably why he ate up the attention so easily.

“So, yes. We were… friends for a few months, and then she took off for the next stop on her research tour,” Cas continues.

“Did she talk much about her research? Even a cover story might have some basis in truth. Did you tell her about your ancestry, or did it seem like she already knew? Did she give you any personal history that you think might be true? If she used the same alias for all of her stops, we might be able to use that info to put together a better picture of her end game.”  
  
Cas is still for a few moments while he ponders Dean’s barrage of questions. “I can have Balthazar look into her alias, but for the rest… Honestly, it was years ago, and I’m afraid I was so flattered by her interest—I was hardly popular—that I didn’t pay much attention to her actions outside of how they related to myself. I don’t think she even talked about her research.”

Given Cas’s general air of self-assurance, his intelligence and dry humor—not to mention, the man _is_ fairly attractive—Dean finds _I was hardly popular_ to be highly unbelievable. He snorts derisively and claps a hand on Cas’s shoulder. The man jumps slightly, but quickly relaxes into the lingering touch. Dean could be imagining it, but maybe Cas leans his way a little bit.

“Yeah, okay, Neville. Whatever you say.” He realizes his hand is still on Cas’s shoulder, and removes it as nonchalantly as possible. Cas regards him somewhat warily, probably trying to figure out what the fuck Dean’s doing. Well. If he figures it out, he should let Dean know. He can’t really say why he had the impulse to touch him, but this is turning into a distraction, and they still have work to do.

He’s already starting to get to his feet, the pew creaking softly as his weight shifts, when Cas asks a wholly unexpected question.

“How did you end up in this life?”

In his surprise, Dean freezes, then slowly relaxes and sinks against the backrest. He was expecting Cas to maybe demand a long-overdue apology, not ask for his life story. Dean focuses on his hand, splayed out on his thigh. He wiggles his fingers, then sighs. “That’s… It’s complicated.” He itches to get up and walk away, but some unfamiliar force keeps his ass planted there on the hard wooden seat. “You, uh… you want the long version, or the short version?”

Cas chews that over for a moment, lip between his teeth. “It occurs to me that the long version would be the most illuminating, but whichever you’re most comfortable telling will be fine by me.”

Dean laughs, sort of. “Illuminating. Right, like I’m some complicated puzzle or something.”

Cas doesn’t reply, but his disapproving frown speaks volumes. When Dean hesitates even further, Cas adds: “You do realize that I just confided in you, don’t you? I bared my soul, although I had no idea whether or not you’d still be angry about the connection I had with Meg.”

“Dude, relax. I was just thinking ‘bout where to start.” That’s even somewhat true. He takes a deep breath, forcing his tension to deflate as he exhales slowly. He stares at his hands, the knuckles white as he clasps them together.

“Well, so, my mom comes from a family in the biz, a long line of badass hunters who also happen to be, by and large, a bunch of assholes. She grew up with this hardcore training regimen that’d put Pai Mei to shame, right, and she hated the life. It’s cold and unforgiving. It kinda has to be. Anyway, she wanted out, wanted a normal life, even though she had no fucking clue what that was, turns out. So anyway, she met my dad fresh out of Vietnam, and they hit it off. They got married against Gramps Campbell’s wishes, and he sort of threw her out; she was a great disappointment, she had no idea what she was doing, yadda yadda. But Mom and Dad were determined to make a go of it. They had two beautiful bouncing baby boys, and then Sam turned out the way he did…”

Dean laughs a little, unable to resist shitting on Sam even when he’s telling a depressing story. 

Or perhaps because of it. Anyway.

“Um, so, Dad went into truck driving, and he, uh, he… He was on an overtime haul. There was an accident. I was so young, I barely remember him. Musta been four, I guess, maybe almost five when he died? And Sam was just a baby. He doesn’t remember him at all. Never even knew him. And Mom, she just… she shut down. Things were looking pretty bad for a while—she’d never even _had_ a real job, plus she’s been raising us, and even though Dad’d been pressured into too many hours behind the wheel and it wasn’t clear who was at fault, the company refused to help with anything. So she went back home, went back to the life she knew. I can’t say what was going through her head, whether she felt forced into it, or she wanted to be able to _do_ something about something, after not being able to do anything for Dad, y’know?” 

If she was anything like Dean, if he was following in her footsteps like Bobby had said, then she needed a purpose—needed to have control over _one_ fucking thing in her life—or she wouldn’t have been able to go on. Why that purpose couldn’t have been him and Sam, he’ll never know. But there’s no point in running this into the ground now.

“So, yeah, that’s pretty much it. We ended up living the life after all. But it’s not so bad,” Dean says. He swallows, his throat dry and scratchy. 

“And your mother, she’s passed on as well?” Cas asks, his gaze following as Dean springs up from the pew.

“Yep,” Dean says, and stalks out of the church.

 

Dean is elbow-deep in a ledger later that evening, bored out of his mind, and currently stifling the mother of all yawns, so the knock on the motel door couldn’t have come at a better time. He bounds up from the little table in the corner of the room, ignoring Cas’s glare as he hip-checks the other man’s chair in his haste.

“Oh, man, Bobby, is it good to see you,” Dean says when he opens the door. 

“Hey, boy.” Bobby gives Dean a full once-over, surprise clear on his face. “Well, aren’t you dressed to the nines. When’s the ball?” 

“Oh my _god_. For the last fucking time, I don’t have any other clothes.”

Bobby’s gaze moves to a spot behind Dean, where Cas has come up behind him—and apparently in the past twenty seconds, he’s smoothed his hair down and straightened his tie for some unfathomable reason (it’s just _Bobby_ ). Dean jerks his head in Cas’s general direction. “And _he_ always dresses like that. And if it makes you feel any better, Sam is still attired in lumberjack chic.”

Sam, being highly attuned to his name being taken in vain, pops his head out of the bathroom.

“Bobby! How was the drive down? How you holding up?”

“Well, my Rockettes audition went swimmingly,” Bobby says, gesturing down at himself, and Sam laughs a little bit ruefully.

“Where’s Rufus, he ditch you already?” Dean asks, speaking over Sam’s chagrin. He steps out around Bobby’s wheelchair and looks around outside, but doesn’t see Rufus.

“Do I look like a ditchable prom date? He’s getting another room. You gonna get out of the way and let me in, or do I gotta run you over?” Instead, Dean gets around the back of Bobby’s chair and pushes him into the room.

Bobby is less than pleased. “I can do it myself, ya idjit. Don’t need you lot fussin’ over me.”

“There’s a lip,” Dean explains, exasperated. Nevertheless, he feels bubbly. Like he’s almost… happy. Of course, that has _nothing_ to do with having his surrogate dad around again, even if he is as crabby as usual.

Right on cue, Bobby makes a noise that sounds an awful lot like _harumph_. “So this must be that wizard you were going on about,” he says, waving imperiously at Cas. Oh, right. He’d completely forgotten about that old joke.

“I’m a cleric,” Cas replies, with a wry twist to his lip. He holds out his hand, and Bobby stares at it a moment before grasping it. “I believe my name was given as James when we were introduced over the phone, but it’s actually Castiel.”

“Huh. You’re way too polite to be hanging out with those two.”

“Hah, hah,” Dean mutters. Figures that Cas wouldn’t bat an eye at Bobby calling him a wizard, but when Dean does it? End of the fucking world.

“I understand you were injured in a car accident,” Cas says. 

“Bright, too,” Bobby says, but Cas is still talking, the suckup.

“I believe I may be able to help with your injuries, if you’d like. I know it’s been a few weeks, but there’s a spell that may still work.”

Bobby’s brows shoot up. “Well, if that’s the case, don’t let me stop you.”

Cas nods and digs around in his bag, finally emerging with a necklace. “This will take a couple of minutes. There may be some discomfort as things stitch themselves back together.”

“Discomfort? Pshaw. Won’t be nothin’ compared to what I already been through. But I sure coulda used something for the pain back then.”

“Aspirin,” Sam says right as Dean says “Whiskey.” Dean pretends he doesn’t see Sam’s concerned side-eye. For fuck’s sake, it was just a joke; he’s done with the non-stop drinking, but if Sam thinks he’s never gonna touch booze again, he can go fuck himself. 

“Smartasses,” Bobby says, eyes intently following Cas as he reaches over to Bobby’s forehead. Cas stays like that for a moment, a look of intense concentration on his face as he somehow manages to ignore the ridiculousness of Bobby’s crossed eyes.

“I think the spell should work just fine, based on what damage has been done to your body,” Cas says. He starts chanting in what Dean thinks is Celestial only because every fifth word sounds vaguely familiar. 

By the time Cas finishes, it’s been a few minutes, and both Dean and Sam are shuffling around out of boredom. That is, until Bobby gasps and moves one of his feet. Dean straightens up with a cut-off exclamation and Sam’s mouth drops open.

“Well, I’ll be…” Bobby surges to his feet so quickly he almost tips over, and he sways drunkenly for a moment, then stumbles forward a step and rights himself. 

“What are you doing, wasting perfectly good spells on that old coot for?” Dean turns to see Rufus framed in the doorway. Bobby turns as well, unsteady as a newborn lamb, but grinning like a fool.

“Can it, Rufus. Younger’n you.”

“Rufus. Hey, man. It’s been forever!” Dean smiles. Rufus just narrows his eyes and looks down his nose at him for a split second, then turns to greet Cas. 

“See? He still remembers the thing,” Dean whispers to Sam.

“Seriously, Dean, what the hell is ‘the thing’?” Sam asks, but Dean ignores him in favor of watching Cas fall all over himself trying to impress Bobby, and possibly, by extension, Rufus.

“What’s with him?” Dean asks, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he can think them through.

“What?” Sam says. 

“Cas. What’s with him? He’s being all weird and social, and… kind of a suck-up. It’s strangely _normal_. Well, as normal as he can probably be. Which is weird, right?”

Sam blinks. “You know you pretty much told him Bobby is our adopted dad, right? And obviously Rufus is a close friend—well, to Bobby at least. Do you seriously not—”

“Yeah, and that’s the thing. They’re good people. They’re family. They don’t need to be wined and dined like that, y’know? He should just be himself. Besides, Rufus is leaving soon anyway.”

“You’re an idiot. He’s acting like any normal person would when meeting… You know it’s only around _you_ that he gets all weird and sarcastic and snippy—” Sam pauses, clearly unable to put his frustration into words, and his mouth does that tic thing that it does when he’s annoyed, but Dean has no idea why. “You know what, just forget it, Dean.”

Dean shakes his head. “Sure, whatever, Sammy.”

Rufus joins them for dinner at a barbeque joint not far away from the motel, but takes off with scarcely a word before the check even comes. 

“He’s got a rugaru to see to down in Arkansas,” Bobby explains. “I was lucky he even stopped long enough to pick me up.”

Cas turns to Dean. “I thought you said he was a family friend,” he says, surprised etched onto his face. “Was it something I said?”

Sam and Dean both burst out laughing.

“That’s Rufus for you,” Sam says.

“He’s a cantankerous old coot even on his good days,” Bobby says. “Now, you boys want to show me what you’ve come up with so far?”


	16. Lucky

_I'm on a roll this time  
_ _I feel my luck could change_

The next day dawns crisp and clear. The sun is shining cheerfully, and a gentle breeze flits through the bright yellow leaves of a maple tree outside. Dean glares out the window through the open curtains, courtesy of one soon-to-be-dead brother. He turns away and pulls the blanket over his head and tries to go back to sleep, but there’s a persistent noise that sounds suspiciously like knocking on the door of the adjoining room—that’s probably what woke him in the first place—and the dog is staring at him from Sam’s bed. He can never fall asleep when the dog’s staring at him. Yet, that doesn’t deter him from squeezing his eyes shut and giving it the ol’ college try. 

After what feels like forever (but was probably only something like fifteen seconds), Dean gives up and stumbles out of bed with a whine. He yanks the door open to see Cas framed in the doorway between their rooms, hair sticking up every which way. The man blinks at him blearily and scratches at his face, which hasn’t been shaved yet. Dean keeps forgetting Cas is even less of a morning person than he is, even though he’s been presented with mounting evidence day after day. The guy’s also dressed in his backup clothes, the jeans and hoodie combo that he’d worn back on that first night after they joined up—what was that, a couple weeks ago now? Wow. Feels like it’s been forever.

Dean’s brain doesn’t work very well at the best of times, and he literally just woke up two minutes ago, so it takes him a few moments to realize he’s simply staring at Cas while all these thoughts run around his head.

“What?” he finally says. His voice is hoarse and croaky after a night of what could be described as poor sleep at best, and nightmare-ridden at worst.

Cas ignores him and peers around Dean into the room. Dean’s blocking most of the view, though, so Cas just pushes around him. 

“Well, excuse _me_ , Princess.”

Cas _still_ ignores him in favor of standing in the center of Dean’s room and looking around like he expects Sam to pop up from a hiding spot. He spies Bones and does his squinty stare at him for a few moments. The dog tilts his head and starts panting.

“Where’s Sam?”

“Nice to see you, too, Cas. He’s probably out pretending he’s being chased by monsters, so come back later.”

Cas finally breaks the staring contest with the dog and turns to face Dean. In the bright sunlight, his other-worldly eyes stand out even more, and Dean’s breath catches at the reminder. 

“Breakfast?” Cas asks.

_That’s_ what was so urgent? With immense difficulty, Dean manages to not roll his eyes. Maybe there was the teeniest of tiny eye rolls, but really, he manages to control himself pretty well.

“Yeah, sure, okay.” He scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands, attempting to use sheer willpower to wake up just enough to deal with this right now.

He gradually becomes aware of the fact that Cas is still standing in the middle of the room, looking at him. Dean must make a face at him, or maybe Cas suddenly realizes that Dean’s in only his boxer briefs, because the man suddenly drops his gaze to the floor. 

“Um. You should probably put some clothes on, however,” Cas says.

“Yeah, thanks, genius. Let me tell you, I’m really looking forward to yet another day in that fucking suit.”

Cas clears his throat.

“I have… an, um, extra pair of jeans and some t-shirts, if you’d like to borrow something,” Cas says, in what appears to be a carefully rehearsed speech. “I believe we’re of similar sizes.”

Dean pretends to think about it for a moment, but honestly, he’s not a suit person, and if Cas isn’t wearing a suit, he’ll feel incredibly stupid wearing one, especially now that his shirt is _beyond_ wrinkled. This crappy motel room doesn’t have an iron, either. Honestly, it’ll be really nice to wear normal clothes, even if they belong to this weirdo. And, actually, with all the crap they’ve been dealing with for the past few weeks, it doesn’t even seem that strange to borrow Cas’s clothes. Not like he’s gonna wear the guy’s boxers or anything, right?

“Yeah, alright. Whatcha got?” He follows Cas back to the other man’s room.

 

He lied.

Wearing Cas’s clothes is weird, and he feels weird, like he crawled into the dude’s skin or something. He shifts around restlessly and pulls at one of the strings of the soft grey hoodie that Cas foisted upon him. He sighs.

So, Dean is reasonably certain that Cas is a year or two older than him, or at least, somewhere around the general vicinity of that ballpark. Okay, well, to rephrase: when Cas is in a suit, Dean’s reasonably certain of that. He looks, well… kinda like how he thinks a tax accountant in his mid- to late-thirties would look. But anyway. How old Cas looks in a suit and how old Cas looks in jeans and a hoodie is staggeringly different, so much so that he almost seems like an entirely different person, even though both of those people look perfectly at home in their respective outfits.

Dean, on the other hand, does not look or feel younger in Cas’s clothes, and he does not look or feel like he belongs in those clothes, either. He just feels like an old man wearing someone else’s clothes, where the jeans are the slightest bit too big, and the sweatshirt is on the roomy side. Even though he’s got to be almost an inch taller than the man, Cas is a little bit… _meatier_ in some… departments. Ugh. He feels weird for even _thinking_ that, for fuck’s sake.

Cas’s feet are also bigger than his, so Cas’s extra pair of swanky retro running shoes is out, and Dean’s dress shoes are out because he’s fucking sick of them, okay, and given the option of wearing Cas’s flip-flops (shudder) or his own work boots, Dean picks the boots. Except now he looks especially dumb, because these aren’t the kind of jeans you wear with battered, ratty, blood-stained and probably other-things-stained boots.

Cas knows this as well, as evidenced by his continually pushing the offending flip-flops toward Dean.

“Dude, I am _not_ wearing those.”

“You look rather silly, Dean.”

“Yeah, well, you’re… silly.” Dean bats away the flip-flops, which have gotten distressingly close to his face. His nose wrinkles, even though they don’t smell. It’s really more the principle of the thing. “‘Sides, I’d rather look silly than walk around with my bare feet touching what other people’s bare feet have touched.”

“You’re very strange, Dean. Can we go to breakfast, now?” Cas rolls his eyes, and tosses the gross things back into his magic freaking bag (this is, Dean realizes, the first time he’s noticed the bag in a long time. It’s less freaky than it used to be, but then again… Being forcibly planeshifted to Canada, going on a murderous rampage, getting killed, and being brought back to life by God, all in a matter of a few weeks, will really put shit in perspective).

Before Dean can reply or even muster up any enthusiasm for going out in public like this, however, the slam of a door reverberates through the open door between their rooms, heralding the end of Sam’s run. 

In a move that completely disregards the thing he just said about being willing to look silly in front of other people, Dean leaps over and slams shut Cas’s side of the door. And then squirms under Cas’s intense scrutiny. 

“Um. It’s just, Sam would never let me live this down,” Dean says, waving his hand at the fashion disaster that is himself.

“Dean?” Sam’s voice floats through the barricade, and does a good job of distracting him from the amused face Cas makes. “What the hell are you doing over there? Is Cas with you?” 

Dean sighs. Sure, Sam _sounds_ all nonchalant, but the smug satisfaction radiating from the other side of the door is so obvious it’s deafening.

“We’re, uh, we’re gonna go get breakfast. You should take a shower ‘cuz you stink. We’ll bring something back for you, okay, Sammy?”

There follows a long pause from Sam’s side of the door. Dean can just picture Sam’s confused look, with his giant crinkled up forehead and patented muppety frowny-face.

“Uh, okay, thanks. Breakfast sounds good. How ‘bout an egg white omelette with fruit on the side, and whole wheat toast.”

Dean helpfully makes a loud gagging noise in response. (Helpful, because he’s only doing his brotherly duty in letting Sam know his food is bad and he should feel bad.)

 

As he pulls Baby out of the motel parking lot and follows Cas’s directions, he’s very aware of how odd it is for him and Cas to be alone together like this. Under normal circumstances, he’d wait for Sam to finish getting ready and haul him along. Hell, with Bobby—and Rufus, if he hadn’t already taken off—a few rooms over, he would normally grab them, too. Granted, he kind of looks like an idiot right now, so the fewer people around who’ll give him shit for that, the better. 

But it’s more than that. It’s just… he thought Cas had died, right, and he thought it’d been his fault—okay, maybe not his _fault_ so much as it was because of all the shit that was going down—but it was, at the least, something that Dean had felt responsible for, whether or not he actually should have been, and he hasn’t had a chance to make that up to Cas yet. (See? Making progress with that whole ‘guilt’ thing.) But Sam, _Sam_ found Cas again, and he doesn’t begrudge Sam that, but he does feel like it should have been him that found Cas.

And it’s not like he’s jealous—a memory pings in his mind, and, unbidden, he remembers what the blade said to him about envy, but he shoves the memory away because this, this train of thought that he’s on right now, this is important and he has to see it through—he’s not _jealous_ of Sam, not really, but he’s kinda sad that he missed out on that. And maybe he’s a little ashamed of how he was. How he was the one, again, that needed help and wasn’t in a position to offer anything in return. So, if anything, he owes Cas and has to catch up to Sam. Something like that, in any case. 

Finally satisfied with those mental gymnastics, Dean settles in and tries to enjoy his pancakes, and they’re fine, they’re good, it’s just that this booth is fucking tiny and his knees keep bumping into Cas’s, and saying ‘sorry, man’ every couple of minutes is getting a bit annoying. It doesn’t help that Cas looks like he’s constantly laughing at him (which, to be honest, he probably is). So as soon as his plate is empty, Dean’s ready to go. He stalks out of the diner with Cas following close behind.

Cas directs them to Target, and somehow Dean ends up purchasing several nice pairs of jeans, dress shirts, and even some sweater vests in addition to his standard pack of t-shirts and some flannel button-downs. And somehow—Dean seems to have very little say in this outing—their next stop is a shoe store, where again, _somehow_ , Dean purchases a regular pair of sneakers in addition to the same style work boot he always gets. He pulls over at a laundromat on the way back to the motel, but that’s only because he can’t afford to be distracted by wearing Cas’s clothes any longer, not when they have work to do. 

It’s not until the Impala’s engine is off and ticking quietly in the motel parking lot that Dean realizes he forgot Sam’s food.

Twenty minutes after _that_ , Dean kicks on the door to their room. A very irate Sam greets them: “You have a key, and it’s been _hours_ —” Sam’s tirade cuts off abruptly when he realizes both Dean and Cas are completely laden down with crap. “Jeez. Which card did you max out?”

Sam moves away from the door in horror, leaving Dean and Cas to lug all the stuff in by themselves. 

Dean drops his bags in a heap in the center of the floor. He gives Sam his takeout box and flops onto a bed, trying to ignore Cas moving around the room as he puts away Dean’s new wardrobe. 

“Are… these all for Dean?” Sam either sounds amused or confused. Possibly both. “Are those sweater vests? And is he wearing _sneakers_?” That’s definitely a combination of both.

“Cas insulted my honor. He said I look silly,” Dean says.

“I insult you all the time, Dean, and you’ve never taken it to heart and bought an entirely new wardrobe before. Not that I’m complaining, this is just… unusual for you. What possible combat advantage could these shoes give you? Isn’t that your reasoning for wearing boots everywhere?”

“These shoes’re +3 dex. Plus, you remember that little thing where _literally_ everything I own has been through the wringer the past few weeks? Now leave me alone, I’m tired. ”

Dean doesn’t expect to pass out from a simple shopping trip, but suddenly he’s shooting awake, the remnants of a pleasant dream making him feel foggy. He slaps the hand on his shoulder away, and Sam backs off.

“Rise and shine, princess.”

“Time is it?” Dean yawns around the words.

“You were only asleep for an hour. Time to hit the books. Coffee’s on.”

Dean stifles a groan, because the day _had_ been perfect. In fact, he’s considering the idea that it could even be called ‘normal’ by many people’s standards. Nevertheless, he swings his legs to the floor, and spends a few moments blinking somewhat owlishly.

“Where’d we leave off on the research?”

Sam consults his notebook, flipping through rapidly to find the most recent page. “There’s a few more books in the church library that Cas wanted to take a look at—other artifacts and stuff like that—and Bobby brought the few things that survived the wreck, some necromancy books and that one book on the occult groups of the Great Lakes region, the one that led us to Madison. And there’s more of that journal to make sense of.”

Dean stretches and his back pops. “So I guess that mean’s we’re going back to the church? Fantastic, can’t wait.”

 

The church library has several small tables, each only able to seat two people, which means between the four of them their materials are spread out over several tables. The chairs are uncomfortable as fuck, and Dean squirms in his restlessly, privately feeling that the hours he put in here yesterday were enough to last a lifetime. Bobby and Sam sound like they’re making progress, whereas he’s staring at Cas, whose nose has been stuck in one of the necromancy books for the past forty minutes, and he hasn’t heard a peep out of him in that time. Dean drums his fingers on the polished wooden table and tries, again, to make some headway in the book Bobby’d tossed at him for some unfathomable reason. Doesn’t make any sense: he’s absolute shit at magic. He’s pretty sure this book isn’t even in English. Meanwhile, Cas is devouring his book, jotting notes down every minute or so. Bobby or Sam should be trying to decipher this crapfest, not him. He sighs, but apparently that’s a no-no, because Cas finally looks up at him with a glare.

“This is pointless. I should be doing something else,” Dean says by way of explanation.

Cas’s lips twitch. “So do something else, then. It’s difficult to concentrate while you’re fidgeting and huffing constantly.” His gaze drops back to the book in front of him.

“Jerk.” Dean jostles Cas’s leg with his knee.

“Careful,” Cas murmurs without looking up. “I’ll send you back to Canada.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Cas shrugs in response, and that seems to be the end of their little interlude. Dean quells another sigh. He stares at the page in front of him for another few moments, then snaps the book shut, shoves it away, and pulls a notepad over and starts jotting down some notes; not things he’s read, but the things he’s started to connect over the past few weeks. Less than an hour later, he’s digging through Bobby’s necromancer books looking for one very particular thing, a thing he’s not even sure would be in those books, but that… ah.

“Cas. Hey, Cas!” Slowly, Cas diverts his attention from his stupid book to Dean, but suddenly, being on the receiving end of Cas’s considerable focus is a bit… much. He falters, clears his throat. “So, ah, I—I was thinking that there had to be something between the date of the ritual noted in the journal and the reason they had that Chalice thingy. Sam thought they were using it to raise zombies, right, but then I got to thinking, why did they raise all those zombies if they haven’t used them for anything yet? Like, the world hasn’t turned into Zombieland, right? So _then_ I thought that maybe they needed the zombies for something else, something specific. Well, turns out that during very particular times of the year, risen undead can be used as sacrifices for some sort of massive summoning. Look here. Very obscure, but Hunter’s Moon is one of those times when you can do that. It doesn’t mention any specific spells or anything, but if you have an object of the deity in question, or I guess in this case demon, you can use it and a buncha sacrifices to summon it. That’d be the Chalice, probably, which means summoning Abaddon would be what they’re after. Pretty neat, huh?” He pauses. “Actually, that’s pretty fucking terrifying.”

Cas pulls the book over toward his half of the table, and loose papers fold up underneath it. 

“I see. Good work, Dean. I think…” he shuffles through his page of notes “Aha. Here.” He points to a section written in hurried, messy handwriting, but reads it aloud before Dean can even start to decipher his upside down chicken scratch. “There’s a number of evocation rituals outlined in the Greater Key of Solomon, and at least one of them uses risen undead as an ‘ingredient’. Um. Hand me that book. No, the other one. Okay, here’s the most promising spell. It summons a being from another plane, but it has very specific restrictions. No physical body can pass, so it has to inhabit the corpse of a person who was possessed, corrupted, or otherwise strongly influenced by the entity being summoned. It consumes large numbers of risen undead, and requires a focusing agent attuned to the being in addition to the corpse to reanimate, plus the black altar and other standard necromantic spell components. Dean… I think this is it. You figured it out.” Cas smiles widely at him, and Dean feels himself flushing at the unexpected praise. His heart thuds against his swelling chest.

“Okay, thanks, but. We know what they’re doing, or some of it, but still have no clue _where_ all this shit is going down.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, this is extremely useful. Now we just have to determine the most likely contender for the corpse that will be used as host.” Cas hurries over to Sam and Bobby’s table, carrying the two books, and Dean trails behind. “Dean had a major breakthrough. Are you two making any progress with the journal?”

Sam perks up.

“Yeah, before we hit another dead end. We didn’t notice this earlier because we started with the most recent entries, but the journal abruptly stops in 1958, and then skips forward _years_. So I took a closer look, and it turns out the journal follows two different organizations, the first being that secret society that Bobby led us to in Madison, and the second _appears_ to be the cult that we’re after, and that Crowley had Dean…uhm, chase down. 

“So, if you look at what the spy recorded leading up to the break, it’s pretty telling. Like Crowley told us earlier, the original secret society had trials that its adepts would have to complete in order to move up in the ranks. One of the stages included communing with a Celestial being, and if you commune with it and forge a contract, it’d become your Celestial Guardian. Protect you, impart knowledge to you, grant you abilities and whatnot. Eventually, you’d have the assistance of your Celestial Guardian in crossing the Abyss. Uh, anyway, so here:

“‘June 21, 1958: Adept Josie Sands completed first trial today. CG’—that’d be the shorthand for Celestial Guardian—‘contacted & contract forged.’ Then a few pages later, from late July, there’s a note about how the Adept has changed. It’s long, so I’ll just give you the synopsis. Her evocation rituals took a dark turn, and the spy, whoever he is, doesn’t think she was evoking the name of God when she was working the rituals. The things she summoned were neutral beings at best, and some may have been demonic entities from the Abyssal plane. The spy wasn’t the only one who noticed this, and it became a matter for the organization leadership to review. The spy suspects her membership would be revoked, had it ever actually come down to it. But before any sort of action could be taken against her, something happened. Maybe she knew her time was almost up, maybe she was driven by something else, I don’t know. But here’s the last entry from this particular spy:

“‘August 12, 1958: Something happened at mtg. Was not there. Returned later to find massacre in B. H. HQ. Elder L. G. still alive, said Sands on rampage & disappeared. Died shortly after. Sending journal via courier & will attempt to find Sands.’ That’s when it skips ahead a couple years. There’s a new writer from this point onward, and he or she starts out completely focused on finding this Josie Sands character, and apparently does in March 1961. They lead their boss right to Sands’s new organization—there isn’t any detail about it here—and there’s some kind of showdown. It sounds like the crisis was averted and whatever was possessing Sands was exorcised. It also mentions that Sands was killed, but not what became of her body, and that’s the dead end I ran into. There’s no relevant information related to her name available online.”

Cas huffs. “That is unfortunate. We’re extrapolating a bit, based on the limited information about the massacre, but it seems like she would be the primary candidate for—Dean, why don’t you tell them what you discovered.”

Dean gives Sam and Bobby the abridged version, and squirms uncomfortably under their surprised regard. He’s not a goddamn child who just handed over his first macaroni project, for fuck’s sake.

“Since this appears to be related to Abaddon,” Cas continues, “the demon from the Abyss, it leads me to believe Josie Sands was influenced or otherwise corrupted by the demon during her second trial. I’m not sure something as powerful as this Abaddon could have been exorcised, though. It would have been helpful if the second spy had included more information about this later ‘showdown’.”

“Yeah, it woulda,” Bobby cuts in, “but they didn’t. Now, here’s what I think. I think this ‘B. H. HQ’ the first spy mentions is Bascom Hall.” He taps a finger against the book laid out before him. “This is the book that mentions that secret society practicing at the University. There’s a fair amount of rampant speculation and some baseless claims, but the author did cite his references, so there’s that. One of the sources listed is from the University archives, a newsletter or pamphlet published in 1957 about campus special interest groups. It’s kind of a longshot, but, I’m thinkin’ we should take a look at it, see if it has any information on the members of the organization. Only problem is, it’s physically in the archives up in Madison. I already checked their digital archives, and no dice there.”

“Shit, that’s easily a six-hour drive. Long trip for one measly piece of paper,” Dean says. He notices Cas fiddling with the strap of his bag. “What, you got an idea or something?”

“I may have a solution, but we would need to be very certain that this is the correct path to take.” He flips open the flap on his bag and rummages around for a moment, eventually resurfacing with one of his wands. The smooth wood glints harshly in the brightly lit library. “I have three uses left of this Teleportation wand. I’d been saving it for emergencies… but if we need to, we can use it.”

Bobby shakes his head. “Archives isn’t even open on Sundays, no reason to waste your wand like that. I can drive up tonight and be there bright and early when they open at eight tomorrow.”

“Sure this is the best lead?” Sam asks. 

“Well, I’m not a hundred percent by any stretch of the imagination, but that book led you to the right place before. Whatever source that author used, well, must be a good one.”

Cas has been chewing his lip next to Dean for the past minute, and finally voices what’s been on his mind. “If you’re amenable, Bobby, I’d like to come along. We ran into trouble in Madison before, and you should probably have assistance.”

For some reason, both Bobby and Sam look at Dean and, sure, he and Cas have been tag-teaming the magic research so he figured the two of them would keep at it. But this is fine, too. “What? I don’t care. He’s nerdy, and he can hold his own in a fight. Probably a good idea to have him there with you.”

Bobby slowly nods, then glances at his watch. “Well, it’s just going on four now, so we should probably get a move on if we want to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning. Are you ready, Castiel, or do you need to grab anything from the motel?”

“I have everything I need right here,” Cas says with a fond pat on his bag, the gesture and the words an echo of the night they met.

“While we’re gone, maybe you boys could look into a way to prevent a corpse from being reanimated. There’s gotta be a way to stymie Meg’s plans. Your angel and me, we’ll be back soon as we can,” Bobby says. Cas nods his own goodbye, and before Dean can even really process what’s happening, Cas and Bobby are walking away down the long church hallway, quickly disappearing from sight. Depending on how long it takes them to find this newsletter thing, they could be gone for days. 

Dean scratches his chin and darts a sidelong glance at Sam. This is really the first time he’s been this alone with his brother since he was brought back, barring that tense hour in the library while Cas was arguing with Balthazar. He can’t say that he’s been looking forward to this. “So… what are we doing in the meantime?”

Sam smiles grimly. “Come walk the dog with me.”


	17. One More Fucking Time

_So go on and find me guilty  
_ _Just one more fucking time_

Sam’s idea of ‘walking the dog’ is interrogating Dean as they navigate the streets of the dilapidated industrial area that Cas’s church occupies. They’re barely halfway down the block when Sam awkwardly clears his throat and asks how Dean’s _doing_. It’s a perfectly normal thing to ask someone, especially when that someone recently died and was brought back to life by a deity, but still, Dean tenses. His whole life he’s been expected to just be _fine_ all the damn time, and he doesn’t know how to be _not fine_ without fucking everything up. He looks up and down the street for something, _anything_ , to derail this conversation—maybe Bobby and Cas forgot something. They could come around that corner any second… But the street is eerily devoid of any sign of life.

Dean sighs. “Not this again, Sam. I told you, I’m okay now. Bad juju go bye-bye.” 

He can’t even muster up much enthusiasm for his defense, so he doesn’t expect Sam to believe him, but Sam is quiet for so long that Dean actually wonders if he’s going to drop the subject. The dog leads them on a meandering trail which they follow without question; Bones is damn good about picking paths that avoid trouble (unless he’s been specifically directed otherwise), and he’s ace at finding his way back, so neither he nor Sam are really paying attention to where they’re going. 

Unfortunately, that mental leeway gives Dean plenty of time to think about what Sam wants him to think about and what Dean definitely does _not_ want to think about—which was probably Sam’s goal. Sam is a looming presence next to him, a weight of censure and reprimand. They’ve never been in a situation like this; he doesn’t know what Sam wants from him, and he doesn’t know what to give him to make this all go away. After a few minutes of mindlessly staring at the weeds that choke the sidewalks and parking lots of the rundown warehouses they pass by, and practically stewing in the aura of disapproval that wafts over from Sam, Dean can’t take the silence anymore. 

“I don’t know what you want from me,” he says. “I’m not drinking, I’m not using that damn blade, and I’m not murdering people anymore. So, what, are you just going to keep tabs on me forever?”

Sam makes a displeased noise somewhere between a laugh and a growl. “It’s what you deserve. If our roles were switched—if _I_ was the one who’d disappeared and done who knows what kinds of things, you bet your ass you’d be all over me from sunup to sundown. But that’s not what this is about. _You died_. You fucking died, Dean, and you weren’t coming back. You’re my brother, and you died, and I couldn’t do anything to save you. I watched you die. _I_ watched you get torn open by something that wasn’t there and _I_ watched the blood gush from you and _I_ heard you scream and _I_ heard you call for help—for _my_ help—and I saw… and then I just _knew_ that… you—you were gone.”

Sam takes a deep breath to collect himself.

“It’s only because of a literal miracle that you’re here at all, Dean. God himself saved you, gave you a second chance, and this—” Sam waves his hand dismissively “—is how you are? You experience a miracle, and it’s no big deal, everything’s back to normal. Well, your normal is what got us in this mess in the first place.”

“Sorry I’m not Mother Theresa. Look, I don’t even know where to begin to make this up to you and Cas. What I did was _unforgivable_ , okay, but you idiots wanted me back, and here I am, and there is no apology that will ever be enough for what I did. So ‘back to normal’ is what I have to offer. Take it or leave it.” 

Somewhere during Sam’s tirade they’d stopped; Dean takes a step, then another, and then he’s walking, his movements jerky and uneven, but he has to get away from that look on Sam’s face. Sam quickly catches up to him. The dog is ten feet in front of them, ears bent like he’s embarrassed to be seen anywhere near the two of them.

“Can’t walk away from this, Dean.”

“You know, I don’t get it. You want me to be more thankful of God’s miracle, but you don’t want me to be a Paladin, which, hello, was God’s idea in the first place.”

“It’s a bad fit for you. If you want to be a good person, do good things, there are ways to go about it that don’t involve a strict moral code with severe consequences for breaking it.”

“I can do this, Sam!”

“Well, you don’t exactly have a history of making good decisions, and you think self-destruction is the best way to atone for those bad decisions, so excuse me for having doubts.”

The rebuke stings. Dean halts under its weight while Sam walks on; he pinches the bridge of his nose, and his mouth works, but he can’t give voice to his defense as Sam gets further and further ahead.

Everything is broken. His brother hates him and wants to leave and can’t even tell him to his face.

He wonders if his coming back to life—coming back in the midst of this fucked-up situation that he doesn’t know how to deal with, in these circumstances that only prove he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and knowing that he’ll only keep ruining everything—is meant to be a punishment instead of a reward. Or maybe it’s a test. A test that he’s going to fail, because Sam’s right: he can’t do this.

He also can’t admit that out loud; Sam deserves to believe in someone who knows what he’s doing. Someone who has a plan, has a way for them to come out on top. Unfortunately, that someone was Mom, not Dean.

But that doesn’t seem right… something God said to him resonates in his mind, and Dean suddenly realizes that it’s not entirely for Sam’s benefit that he pretends to be infallible. He remembers now how Sam was always butting heads with Mom’s authoritative nature: he resented being treated like a foot soldier, and despised the frequent dismissal of his unconventional theories and plans of attack because Mom preferred to trust in her tried-and-true tactics. 

No, Sam isn’t disappointed in Dean because Dean doesn’t live up to Mom, or because Dean can’t hack the leadership gig. Sam doesn’t want those things at all, and Sam hasn’t been forcing him into the role left by Mom’s death. Dean’s been forcing it on himself, and _that’s_ why Sam’s disappointed in him.

God, he’s an idiot. How could he have missed the clues for so long?

Dean thinks about how it would be, him and Sam working together as a real team instead of some half-assed dictatorship that neither of them wants; how he could share his burdens instead of shouldering them alone all the time. Being able to actually confide in his brother—how wild would that be? 

But it’s probably too late to change things between them now. He’s not sure he can ever have that with Sam—there’s just too much history between them, too much heavy-handedness on Dean’s side of the equation and too much rebellion on Sam’s. Dean sighs; his momentary relief dashed by the reality of the situation, he hurries to catch up to his brother.

 

Sam doesn’t bring it up again over the next couple days, so Dean doesn’t, either. Time’s running out, and they’re desperately aware of that fact. Instead, they bury themselves in a landslide of mind-numbing research and make little actual progress. Sam finds a little-known spell that might make Josie’s corpse unsuitable as a vessel, but they still don’t know where it is, or where Meg is. Still, Sam writes out a copy to have someone at the church transfer over to a wand; Dean realizes with some surprise (and the tingling in the back of his head that he’s come to expect on occasion) that he already knows this spell and wishes, not for the first time, that Chuck had given him a manual for this Paladin shit. Just about the only other good news they’ve had was from Bobby and Cas’s end, where they finally managed to track down that fucking newsletter near the end of the day Monday.

Bobby sends them an email that includes a scanned reproduction of the document. As promised, it’s full of blurbs from special interest groups on campus. The one they’re interested in—innocuously labeled the ‘Metaphysics Club’—shows a membership photo taken in a location that could very easily have been Bascom Hall. The group consisted of six men and one strikingly beautiful woman whom the caption describes as Philosophy Department faculty member Josephine Sands. Bobby theorizes that the Metaphysics Club was, in fact, the secret society—because what better way to hide than out in the open in the guise of a harmless faculty special interest group? Unfortunately, the document only provides information on the club, and not the active members at the time. In light of that, Bobby and Cas decide to stay another day to see if they can dig up any more dirt on Josie; seeing as she was an actual faculty member at the school, there has to be something, somewhere.

On Dean and Sam’s end, they come up with a whole fat load of nothing. Sam wants a more accurate translation of the spell Cas had found, but neither of them have any luck finding similar spells in any of Bobby’s books, or in the church library books. At best, all they have is a general idea of the spell, and that’s not usually enough to develop a counter. Unused to spending so much time with Sam in the mood he’s been in for the past few days, Dean starts arguments over the stupidest little things. They spend as much time fighting as they do researching, and by Monday night Sam is so pissed at Dean that he takes over Cas’s room at the motel. Naturally the dog goes with Sam, so Dean spends the night angry and alone, watching bad porn (charged to Sam’s credit card) with the volume turned up too high.

Tuesday follows the same pattern as Monday: Cas and Bobby have successes, and Dean and Sam have little to show for all their effort. This time, Cas sends the email. Since Josie had been on faculty, there was actually a fair amount of information on her, although only a small portion was available to Bobby and Cas as visiting guests to the archives. But all they really need is the one little scrap they do find: a Philosophy Department letter from July 1957 introducing and welcoming Dr. Sands as a new professor and researcher. Dean reads through the scanned document attachment quickly: apparently Josie had come to the University by way of the nearby Edgewood College, where she’d obtained degrees in Philosophy and Education, and prior to _that_ she had been ‘Sister Maria Albert’ at a Dominican convent in Illinois. There wasn’t any reason given for her leaving her religious life behind for a more secular one, but at least now they have another name to Google.

Which is what Sam’s doing right now while Dean sits outside on one of the chairs purloined from Cas’s room in the interests of him and Sam avoiding a Battle Royale. He’s given up on being useful, so instead he plays fetch with Bones. It’s late afternoon, almost dinner time, and warm for mid-October. The trees down here are a couple weeks behind schedule, at least compared to the ones up at Bobby’s cabin in the north woods of Wisconsin. The green and yellow leaves wave softly in the gentle breeze. Dean started out the game with Bones with his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, but the setting sun has been roasting him, so he lost the plaid and is only wearing a t-shirt now. Which, come to think of it, is actually the one he stole from Cas. Dean’s gotten way too used to Cas being around. It’s going to be hard when the guy inevitably leaves once— _if_ —they sort this mess out. Dean’s just finished sending Cas a text telling him to get his ass back here soon before he and Sam kill each other when he gradually becomes aware of Sam’s voice, and goes back inside the room to see what’s up. 

“You guys coming back down soon, then? We only have a few more days, and Dean and I are getting nowhere… Mmhm. Mhmm… Yeah, well, he’s lucky I haven’t—oh, um, hey, Dean. Sounds like Bobby and Cas are wrapping up their research and heading back here tomorrow.”

Dean pulls out his phone, but Cas hasn’t texted back. He frowns, but just as he goes to tuck his phone back in his pocket it buzzes. He ignores Sam—who continues bitching to Bobby about Dean even though _he’s right here_ —in favor of reading the short but immensely welcome message from Cas. It simply states that the two of them will be leaving Madison Wednesday morning, that he looks forward to seeing Dean again, and that if Dean kills Sam, Cas will just have to wish for another Miracle. Dean smiles, and types out a reply ( _I’m not sure even God likes you that much, so I’ll be good_ ). He shouts to Sam that he’s going to pick up dinner as he strides out the door. 

 

Sam gets pissy over Dean’s dinner choice because Sam’s a weirdo who doesn’t like tacos, and they spend another night in separate rooms. Wednesday dawns cool and blustery, and it fits Dean’s mood to a T. He’s waiting outside again, Bones curled up at his feet and entirely uninterested in the ratty old tennis ball that sits smack in the center of the parking lot. Dean’s been thinking about Josie a lot as snippets of her past come to light. They know so little, though: just dates and places. Nothing real, nothing solid. No hints as to the real person who somehow went from a nun to a professor to… whatever she ended up as. She was successful, educated… it sure seemed like she had her ducks in a row. So what the hell happened? What could have possibly led her down the path to demonic possession and mass murder? How far had he been from a similar fate—or had he already crossed that threshold? Yeah, he probably blew past that point a while ago. And what’s so special about him, that he deserves a second chance, but she didn’t? He looks at the little figurine Chuck gave him; the horned face with sightless eyes seems to mock him from where it dangles on the leather cord grasped loosely in his hand.

The sun disappears behind another bank of clouds, and he shivers.

A hand drops down on his shoulder, and he jumps, but it’s only Sam.

“Dean. I found something. Come take a look,” Sam says, then ducks back into the room.

Books and notebooks spill across the small round table. It’s unbalanced, and tilting slightly under the weight it was never meant to support.

“So, we all thought Josie left her convent in order to go to school, but it looks like she was never cloistered as a nun in the first place, and was free to pursue her degree since her order placed as much emphasis on study and ‘engagement with the world’ as it did prayer and contemplation.”

Dean just stares at Sam, knowing there’s a reason Sam’s telling him this, but just not putting it together. He blames it on the weather. Autumn days like this remind him too much of the ends of things.

“She was still a member of her order when the massacre happened, Dean. She was buried on the convent grounds. The order has burial records online, and I found her. I fucking found her. ‘Sands, Sr. Maria Albert, born 1925, died 1961’ buried right there at Albertus Dominican Sisters Cemetery, outside of Galena, Illinois.”

Dean is suitably impressed, and tells Sam so. He grabs a beer from the mini fridge and ignores Sam’s disapproving frown as he goes back outside. He sits in the chair and watches the wind tussle the leaves of the spindly trees that edge the parking lot. The beer is too cold for the weather, but he chugs it anyway and drops the empty can on the ground next to him. The wind soon picks it up, and he watches dispassionately as it rolls and bumps its way across the parking lot, soon coming to rest next to the tennis ball in a small, cracked depression in the asphalt. The dog whines next to him, and he absently scrubs a hand along Bones’s head. 

He should be happy. They’re making progress in figuring this mess out. He’s alive, and no one else close to him has died in a few weeks.

He should be happy, but he’s not.

What the hell is wrong with him?

 

Cas and Bobby return later that evening, but Dean can’t muster up any enthusiasm for the reunion despite how much he’d been looking forward to their return only yesterday. They soon give up on including him as they crowd around Sam and congratulate him on finding Josie’s final resting place. Dean retreats to Cas’s room (that now smells of dog and Sam instead of Cas) and plops down on Cas’s bed, another beer in hand. He’s not really drinking it. It’s just something to hold onto, something to keep his hands occupied. He’s tired. He’s tired of running and fighting and… well. Just tired.

_I can’t fix you,_ God had told him. _Fix yourself so you stop causing problems_ , God had told him.

If even _God_ thought he was broken, what chance did he have?

“Dean?”

He looks up at the intruder. The doorway between rooms frames Cas, the light streaming in behind him, putting him in silhouette. Animated voices murmur behind him. Sam laughs loudly. Dean hadn’t even realized he’d been sitting here in the dark until now, and he’s thankful, at least, that it’s too dark for Cas to see him blush at being caught in a depressive slump.

“Are you okay?” Cas asks. The bed creaks as Cas sits next to him; he puts a tentative hand on Dean’s knee.

“I think I’m pretty fucking far from okay,” Dean says, and the admission is like a dam springing a leak. There’s so much pressure behind that concrete wall, and even a little trickle will lead to the whole thing bursting. But he can’t stop. He let out that little drop, and everything else follows. He tells Cas about how he almost got Sam killed as a kid while fighting a striga, how Mom tried to toughen him up after that, to keep Sam safe, to keep himself safe. How that became his entire identity, and when Mom died—when he _killed_ Mom—he had to do her job plus his. He tells Cas how he constantly feels he’s going to crack under the pressure, and how ashamed he is that he can’t hold it together as well as she had. He tells Cas—stumbling a little, because it’s fucking embarrassing—how much it killed him when he thought Cas was dead, how because he couldn’t deal with being powerless to prevent it and definitely couldn’t deal with being reminded of him, that he chose to seek help from Crowley. He tells Cas how that’s put a rift between him and Sam that he doesn’t think he can heal.

He could probably keep confessing his sins forever.

“I regretted it the second we saw that fucking blade at the pawn shop,” Dean says. “And I still went through with it. There’s gotta be something wrong with me.”

His throat hurts from trying to spill his guts without crying and his shoulders are tense; somewhere along the line, Cas slung his arm around Dean’s back, and the weight of his hand on Dean’s shoulder is warm and reassuring. Cas’s body is warm and solid next to him; he can’t really deserve this, can he? 

Cas is quiet for a while, and then, with a gentle squeeze, he drops his arm from around Dean. Dean shivers a little with the loss of warmth. “I’m not sure there’s anything _wrong_ with you, Dean. You’re stubborn and obstinate, and you care far too much what other people think of you. But those are _faults_. They make you human. It doesn’t mean you’re broken.”

Dean laughs—or he tries to. His throat catches on the sound, and it comes out more like a barking cough. “Did you know God said I was broken?”

“He did _what_?” Cas sounds nonplussed, and mostly because he wants to see the look on his face, Dean leans away to turn on the bedside lamp. The pale yellow light washes over them. Cas frowns; hurt shines in his eyes as he looks at Dean. He suddenly leans into Dean’s space and smushes his cheeks between his hands as he bumps Dean’s forehead with his own. It’s a little… weird, but kinda funny because they’re so close that their eyes are crossing as they stare at each other. “I’m not sure that’s what he meant, but if so, he’s wrong. You have a large number of good qualities, far more than your faults. You’re loyal and brave. You’re extremely loving, and protective of your loved ones. You make impressive leaps of intuitive logic. You’re very, um, physically capable and—” Cas backs away and clears his throat “—rather good-looking, and I’ll even admit that you’re funny. Only on occasion, though. And by the way, stubbornness can be a good quality at times. In any case, it’s one of the things I like about you, Dean Winchester.”

Dean fights against a smile. He loses. “You _like_ me, Cas? Awww. Gonna ask me to prom now?”

Cas rolls his eyes so hard his entire head moves. “Shut up. You’re the one who stole my shirt.”

“Oh. Um. Heh. I mighta been wearing it the past couple of days.”

“I don’t mind. You should probably wash it, though.” Cas wrinkles his nose, and it’s not adorable at all.

Companionable silence fills the space between them, but inevitably, Dean’s thoughts sink back into the maudlin pit they’d been stuck in over the past couple days. His smile drops away.

“Am I always going to be like this?”

“I wasn’t lying when I said there was nothing wrong with you, Dean. Your life has been filled with more hardships than most people ever face in a lifetime, making the learning curve that much more challenging for you. I hadn’t known about your mother—that must have been extraordinarily difficult, and I’m so very sorry that you had to do that.” Dean grunts in acknowledgment, not trusting himself to speak, but Cas isn’t finished yet. “Learning to forgive yourself is something most people never figure out, you know. I’m not quite there myself—”

_What do you have to forgive yourself for? Meg hoodwinking you? How does that even come close to Crowley—_ Dean mentally shakes himself. He has no way of knowing just how badly Meg’s betrayal messed Cas up, and he shouldn’t compare that situation to his own. 

“—and some days I feel like I’m making no progress at all. Other days are better. I think it may just be a matter of taking each day as it comes and doing the best you can.”

“What if your best just fucks everything up royally?”

Cas laughs softly. “Then you try again the next day? I really don’t have all the answers, Dean. No one does. Yes, sometimes our best only exacerbates problems. Sometimes it works miracles. No one’s perfect, and you do yourself a disservice by thinking you should be. Coming to terms with that… well. It takes a lot of hard work, and I don’t—I wouldn’t call myself an expert, as I certainly have a long way to go, myself. But, Dean, you’re my friend—” Cas puts an emphasis on _friend_ that Dean doesn’t quite get, but that causes him to blush anyway, “—and I want you to know that as long as you’ll have me, I’ll be by your side.”

“You mean…” Dean raises his brow and looks at Cas, because he can’t bring himself to finish that sentence, not even entirely sure what he’s asking, only knowing that it’s important.

“Of course,” Cas replies with a soft smile; his eyes crinkle up like he just won the lottery, and suddenly Dean wonders what he just signed up for, because something significant just happened and here he is, fumbling around trying to make sense of it, while Cas seems to know exactly what went down and exactly what it means. Nevertheless, beneath the tight, anxious confusion that grips him bubbles something effervescent and hopeful.

“Thanks, Cas. And that was fucking sappy, you dork.” Dean bumps Cas with his shoulder, but stays pressed up against him. And he’s definitely not imagining it when Cas leans into the touch. 


	18. Wasting the Dawn

_Been runnin' away so long from the day  
_ _Into the strange night of stone to fade away_

On Saturday, Dean wakes to a pit of dread occupying his stomach. _Big day’s tomorrow_ , his brain helpfully reminds him. If there’s one thing he misses about spending his days in a drunken haze, it’s that his inner monologue was much less annoying.

In the other room—the one that was originally his and Sam’s—Cas holds a cup of coffee like it’s the fucking One Ring, Sam’s nowhere to be seen (which means he’s probably out running), and Bobby’s spoiling the dog with belly rubs. Everyone’s acting so damn normal. This is all almost _too_ normal, actually. A persistent fluttery feeling runs amok in his guts, a prelude to churning anxiety, most likely. But for now, coffee sounds good. He greets the room at large, and gets two tired stares in return, the first sign that things are not as normal as they first appear.

Cas just looks at him dopily, clearly not very awake yet. Bobby’s appraisal is more disturbing, because he’s got that little wrinkle in his forehead that means something’s bothering him, but he doesn’t quite know what to make of it. That something appears to be Dean.

“You sure been sleepin’ a lot lately.”

“And good morning to you, too, Bobby.” Dean pours himself a cup of tepid coffee and guzzles it down. Idly, he wonders if Sam’s nectar stuff would make it more drinkable, but he doesn’t budge from his position leaning against the kitchenette counter. It’d be a longshot, anyway, if Sam still had it with him.

A shrill tone interrupts Dean’s wandering thoughts. Cas whips out his phone and shoves himself away from the table—his coffee abandoned—and jogs into the other room. Dean watches with raised brows; he’s never seen the guy move so fast so early in the morning. Except that time they were ambushed in the motel room in Dodgeville, but that was too fucking early to really be considered morning, and could probably be considered exigent circumstances.

“Who set his pants on fire?” Bobby grouses. 

Dean doesn’t have an answer, so he keeps his mouth shut. Instead, he rummages around in a greasy-looking wax bag that’s left over from yesterday’s bakery trip, but there’s only stale muffin crumbs in the bottom. “Damn it,” he mutters, and crumples up the bag. He pokes around the kitchenette to no avail. “I need to get something to eat. There a game plan?”

“We need to go to the Church,” Cas says from behind him.

Dean whirls around. “Jeez. We gotta put a bell on you or something.”

“Balthazar may have something that can help us.”

“Is it how to counteract this damn ritual?”

“No… not quite. But nearly as good, I believe. As soon as Sam returns, we should leave.”

 

Cas won’t mention what it is that Balthazar has for them despite Dean’s prodding, but fortunately for his curiosity, Sam’s done with his run fairly quickly, and they’re headed over to the church—for what Dean hopes is the last time—within the hour. His empty stomach protests, but he’s way too invested in whatever this errand is to care much. As he makes the final turn before their destination, he finally admits to himself that maybe it’s not hunger that’s making him squirm in discomfort.

The church, of course, looks the same: there’s the church itself, which looks like… a church. Stained glass windows, the steeple with the cross on it, all that jazz. And then there’s the rest of it, the library, offices, and storage facility. _That_ part is a nondescript block of concrete with rusted out and weed-choked loading docks. The walls are tagged with colorful graffiti, and Dean hasn’t decided whether that’s window dressing, or genuine street art. He knows from spending half of the past week or so here that the warehouse connects to the back corner of the church, but it isn’t at all obvious when driving by, due to the screen of tightly packed evergreens. You could probably tell from above, and if you walked all the way around the back of the church it’d probably be obvious, too. No, the screen of trees is just to prevent the occasional passerby from developing curiosity about why a church is attached to an abandoned warehouse. The real protection is in the wardings; even a magical dunce like Dean knows that those would be amped up to eleven.

So, anyway. The church looks the same, but something feels different. It’s probably just him and his anxiety about their deadline making him feel jumpy, but he’s not going to write off the possibility that something’s changed with the wardings. That the magical energy of the area has changed. He briefly—very, very briefly—considers how Meg completely bamboozled Cas and a little thought wiggles its way into his brain about how insistent Cas was about them coming here right away, and wouldn’t tell them what was up. But that wouldn’t—Cas wouldn’t do that. It’s ridiculous. It’s something else that’s different. And it’s not a _bad_ different, not necessarily. Besides, Sam’s more magically attuned than Dean, and the stick up his butt doesn’t look like it’s any further up there than usual.

So Dean banishes his traitorous thoughts and tells himself he’s a jerk for even considering it in the first place.

Maybe it’s some unknown paladin B.S. God neglected to mention. Yeah. That seems likely. It’s not like God handed him a manual or anything useful when he gave him the gig. Nope, just told him ‘he’d know’ and shoved him back into his body. His lips twitch into a grimace.

He’s probably just overwrought from this whole situation.

Dean swings Baby around the side of the warehouse and down a loading ramp that’s hidden from the street. The car idles for a few moments while Cas does some mojo shit in the backseat; and—this is the part that wigs Dean out every time—then the solid face of the loading dock shimmers and disappears, becoming a dark, open hole. Dean throws the headlights on and inches forward, certain that one of these times the solid concrete wall of the loading dock will reappear just in time to ram Baby into it. Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn’t mean it won't, he reasons, even though he knows he’s being dumb.

There are a few other vehicles parked in the small lot, and he snorts to himself when he recognizes Balthazar’s flashy piece of work. The man himself is waiting for them up by the entryway into the building proper, which is strange. Dean pulls around to the far side where no one else parks so that he can take up two spaces, and they all pile out.

“Hello, darlings!” Balthazar is _uncommonly_ cheerful. He’s never happy to see them. In fact, he’s usually condescending and rude. “Have I got a treat for you. Come in. Come, come.”

He leads them through the labyrinthine hallways that Dean’s grown to loathe over the past week, but turns away from what Dean thinks is the way to the library wing. Instead, they hang a right and enter an area with brightly-lit, sterile white halls. They file past two checkpoints manned by people in bland, nondescript suits. They look boring enough, but he feels the restrained power humming through the air surrounding them as they pass by. This place gives him the creeps on any normal day, but this? This is just fucking weird. His neck starts to ache from the tension in his shoulders. Just as the worm of anxiety in his belly is about to crawl up his throat and make him do something stupid, they come to a stop in front of a large double door. Balthazar swings to face them and claps his hands, rubbing them together in a way that kinda reminds Dean of a cartoon villain. 

“Oh, I’m so excited—”

“Can the theatrics, Balthazar, and tell us what we’re doing here.” Bobby’s grumpy displeasure mirrors Dean’s, and he only just manages to avoid laughing; Balthazar sighs and flips up a panel alongside the door. His body blocks whatever security system it is from their sight, but it only takes him a few seconds to disarm the door. With a hiss, the door splits horizontally down the center and each half disappears into the floor and ceiling, respectively. 

Dean can’t help being impressed, but it kinda feels like they’re walking into the Death Star, and that thought doesn’t ease his anxiety any.

“Pity. I was quite enjoying your awe. In any case, our Cassie here has convinced me that this is a matter of grave importance, so I’ve decided use my stash of goodies to help you out.”

Dean maybe bristles a little bit at the mention of ‘our Cassie’, but keeps his trap shut. He’s fairly certain Balthazar is just doing his best to be annoying. He’s only known the guy a week, but that’s more than enough time to realize he’s a grade-A d-bag.

“Stash of goodies—you mean the evil relics that you’re meant to be safeguarding?” Sam asks.

Balthazar _tsk_ s. “Not everything that’s powerful is evil, Sam. Some things simply _are_. If the user is evil, or does evil things with them, well… Some things _are_ inherently Evil, of course—Dean here learned that lesson—while other things are inherently Good. We have a varied collection at our disposal, and in my infinite wisdom and boundless generosity, I’ve decided to lend out some of the pieces. Only the Good ones, of course. Can’t be too careful.”

They follow him through the storeroom. The place is starting to get to Dean, in the form of a pulsing headache taking root in his left temple. When he sneaks a look at his brother, Sam’s squinting against the light. He looks past Sam, and Cas has his constipated look on, the one that Dean thinks means he’s annoyed, but will put up with it in the interests of getting out of here quicker. Or maybe Dean’s projecting again.

Balthazar comes to a stop along a bank of what— _seriously_?—looks like Rubbermaid storage bins. Dean shares a look with Sam, but he supposes that if some badass makes it all the way through the exterior and interior warding, the guards, _and_ the security doors, anything else probably won’t be a challenge. But as Dean leans over to inspect the contents of one bin, he feels a warning hum of power buzz along his arm, raising hairs in its wake. He steps back quickly.

Their guide has already moved ahead to the next aisle, and Dean hurries to catch up. Balthazar pulls on a pair of white cloth gloves and removes a large tub from the shelf. He then lugs it to the center of the storage room, where a large white table spans about ten square feet in between the rows of shelving units.

“These are all Holy Weapons of God,” Balthazar explains with a tone that should probably be a bit more reverent as he removes a series of small swords that appear nearly identical. He starts describing them, but Dean’s focused on what he _didn’t_ take out of the bin: a nickel-plated Colt pistol that’s just calling to him. Before he can remind himself it might be a bad idea, he’s reached into the bin and plucked it out. It’s not until his hand settles around the grip that a charge sparks through him, and he gasps softly. The gun falls from his hand with a clatter, and suddenly, everyone’s eyes are on him. Silence reigns for all of two seconds, and then confused chatter breaks loose.

“Dean, didn’t you learn _anything_ from that fucking knife?” Sam says, followed by Bobby’s terse, “Idjit” and Cas’s strangled-sounding grunt. Dean’s gaze slides over to Balthazar, but he merely looks back, unconcerned. 

“What? He said these were Good weapons.” Dean picks the gun up again. This time, there’s no reaction. All in all, it’s a million times better than that fucking cursed dagger. Less pain, fewer voices in his head. “It’s not like it’s trying to mind-control me. Besides, I like this one.”

“If you’d been listening to me, you’d notice that I was literally just explaining that yes, they _do_ form bonds, and that you’d need to be very particular when picking out a weapon. But seeing as how you’ve already bonded—yes, that was the jolt you felt—it’s too late to change your mind.” Balthazar frowns. “It’s not a very… Paladin-like choice, you know.”

Dean frowns. “Like I _literally_ just said, I like this one.”

“Don’t you even want to know what it does?”

“Nah,” Dean says. “I’m cool.”

Balthazar rolls his eyes and sighs, and starts going on about the swords again. He doesn’t get very far when Sam interrupts him.  
“If Dean gets a gun, then I’m taking this.” Sam reaches into the bin and pulls out a sawed-off shotgun. His arm jerks, and that’s all there is to mark his bonding. “Huh. That wasn’t so bad.”

_Yeah, well, it’s not fucking cursed, now, is it?_ But Dean keeps his mouth shut.

Balthazar sighs even more loudly. “What is with you two and guns? Why doesn’t anyone here like swords?”

“I’m interested in the swords, please continue,” Cas says. Dean mimics him behind his back. And really, he should probably know by now that Cas has an uncanny ability to know when Dean is doing things behind his back, or thinking uncomplimentary things about him in his head, because Cas twists around and glares at him.

Dean snaps his mouth shut mid-mock. Sam laughs, and Balthazar darts looks between Dean and Cas before making a _hmmm_ noise. Naturally, he picks up right where he left off in his boring description of the Holy Bane and Death Ward and Freedom of Movement effects these swords have.

“Move aside, son…” Bobby edges Dean aside to peer into the bin. His face lights up and he reaches in. “Think I’ll take this one.” He pulls out a hunting rifle.

Balthazar crosses his arms and does a fair imitation of a sulk. “Fine. Do whatever you want. But Cassie, please tell me you’re not going to follow in the footsteps of these howler monkeys, and that you’re choosing an _elegant_ weapon, one that requires some skill.”

Cas stops mid-reach and stares at Balthazar wide-eyed for a moment before retracting his hand from the vicinity of yet another handgun in the seemingly endless supply. It’s a little theatrical, sure, and entirely transparent since Cas is untrained in firearms, but knowing that even Cas wants to mess with Balthazar improves Dean’s mood. He chuckles, and they share a look while the normally unflappable Balthazar has a small stroke.

 

“I probably should have let him tell me what this thing does,” Dean admits later. His new gun is tucked inside his jacket pocket, a reassuring weight at his side that doesn’t make his head hurt and doesn’t talk to him. The hands-off approach is rather nice, but that also means it’s not telling him what it can do.

He senses more than sees Sam look up from the road map he has spread out across his lap in the passenger seat.

“Don’t you have the ability to do that yourself, now? ‘Identify’, or maybe just Detect Magic?”

Dean shrugs. “It’s not like God gave me a how-to guide on being a Paladin. He was all cryptic and shit, and said that things would just come to me.”

Sam _hmms_. “I’m sure he has his reasons.”

“Yeah. He’s a dick.”

“Or maybe he wants you to have some character growth.”

Dean’s hand tightens around the steering wheel. He sneaks a glance into the rearview mirror. “Looks like Bobby and Cas fell back. Where are we, by the way?” He eases his foot off the gas. Fat lot of good it would do to end up at the convent with who knows what waiting for them without half of the team.

“About an hour out,” Sam says. 

Dean could swim in the tension that rolls off of Sam.

“Knock it off, alright?”

Sam’s quiet for a few beats, like he’s considering his answer. “Knock what off?”

“You know what. The huffy, offended—” Dean waves a hand angrily in Sam’s general direction “— _shit_ you got going on right now. I’m sorry I’m so disappointing. Sorry I don’t have all the answers. Sorry I’m not a better person and that I need _character growth_ , because I can’t help feeling that everything is my fault, and that if I was just _better_ we wouldn’t be in this fucking mess, alright? Jesus.”

This is not the outburst Dean had had in mind; he meant to tell Sam to take his angry condescension and shove it, not start apologizing for shit he can’t control. He twitches, but forces himself to look straight ahead, to keep his eyes on the road.

There’s a long silence from the other side of the car, then Sam clears his throat. 

“I’m not disappointed in you. Not the way you seem to think I am. I’m _worried_ about you, Dean. You take everything on your shoulders, things you can’t even begin to be responsible for. You take all that weight and you internalize it and you carry it around with you, like it’s a point of pride that you sacrificed yourself for the family. You gave up every chance you had—education, friends, relationships…” Sam makes a startled noise, as if something just occurred to him. “No, you know what? You don’t have a monopoly on sacrifice, Dean, because we’ve all sacrificed things to get to where we are today. We’ve all sacrificed _enough_ and we don’t have to do it any longer.”

Dean snorts. Sam misinterprets it.

“I’ve given up a lot for this family, too. Maybe I didn’t die, but I gave up my chance for a normal life when I left school and my friends behind.” Dean vaguely recalls Sam’s sulleness when he came back to them, how he moped for weeks, and how Dean had thought it’d been because of a girl. Sam never mentioned anything in particular, though, and Dean now realizes it was because Sam knew he wouldn’t get any support from Dean—heck, Dean had been trying his best to get Sam to leave school. Shame at his past actions burns through him and his hands tighten on the steering wheel; Baby swerves slightly under the force of his grip. Small wonder Sam wants to leave him and go back to school.

“Then there’s Mom,” Sam continues, apparently ignorant of Dean’s inner turmoil and momentary lack of vehicular control. “Mom gave up everything, too. She gave _us_ up.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Yeah, she dropped us off at Bobby’s or at Gram and Gramps’ place a lot, but she still raised us.”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. Bobby always said that something in her died when Dad died, so I think that when she chose to go back to the life she not only sacrificed herself, but us, too. She gave up her chance to be a real parent, and for us to be real kids. And it wasn’t fair. She didn’t deserve that, but neither did we. You don’t deserve this, Dean, what you’re doing to yourself. Whatever it is that’s driving you to be this reckless, overburdened, selfish, self-destructive jerk, you’ve got to let it go.”

Dean nods; his lips twitch, and his eyes start stinging, but he blinks it away. “So everyone keeps telling me. But I don’t know how,” he admits.

And Sam has nothing to say to that.

 

The Albertus Dominican Sisters convent is, to put it lightly, _remote_. The nuns must’ve really loved their privacy, because getting there takes several wrong turns and a tortuous drive over a road that’s more farm access track than actual road. The convent is up in the bluffs, which means they’re close to the river, though Dean’s so turned around he can’t be sure whether that’s the Galena River or the Mississippi or maybe both.

They roll up to the main gates just after the sun has set. The moon hovers large and low on the horizon, orange and sullen, while the last vestiges of sunlight streak the sky. The full moon technically isn’t until tomorrow night, but it looks full enough to the naked eye, or maybe he just doesn’t know shit about moon phases. The gates are high and locked shut with a thick chain, with only overgrowth visible beyond. Past the gates, weeds choke the gravel drive, and unpruned trees form a narrow, dark tunnel. Dean drives on until he finds a little-used gravel drive near the base of a hill. He pulls in and angles the Impala off the track so that it should be hidden from the road. Bobby’s old beater comes to a creaky stop next to Baby only moments later. 

They tumble out of their cars, stretching and groaning as quietly as possible, and gear up. Bobby leads the way uphill, making his best guess as to where the graveyard is from an old map of the convent grounds that Sam found. He insists on proceeding without flashlights, and Dean isn’t going to argue against that, but nothing makes him feel like a bumbling idiot nearly as much as actually bumbling around in the near-dark. 

And when they stumble out of the undergrowth onto a flat tableau, what once was probably the well-manicured lawn of a very normal-looking cemetery, Dean immediately feels how _wrong_ everything is. His skin prickles and his hair stands on end, but more than that, there’s the tangible feeling of tendrils curling around his limbs, weaving between his fingers, and sliding along the hair at the nape of his neck. He looks at his hand. He can _feel_ it. But there’s nothing there.

He stops dead in his tracks and tries very, very hard not to flip out. Given how he’s being bad-touched by something invisible, it’s not easy.

“Wait,” he whispers, and the night is so still that the other three hear him and pause. Bobby and Sam seem none the worse for wear, looking at him curiously. The dog is on high alert, but calm. Cas, however… Cas is _tense_ , his eyes tight and lips pursed. Yeah, he has that same slight edge of panic that Dean does, as the nameless thing that they can’t see curls around them.

“You feel it, too?” Cas says, voice thin and reedy. Dean nods. His chest is tight and he can’t quite get enough air. Now that they’ve stopped moving, the thing has backed off slightly, no longer directly touching him.

“What is it?” Sam asks. 

“There’s something here,” Cas says. “I don’t know what it is, but it only seems to be affecting Dean and me.”

“It’s like a cloud, maybe, or… or smoke or something. But invisible. I could feel it, like it was brushing against me, but now it’s…” Dean trails off.

Bobby takes a step toward them. “What’s it doing now?”

Dean considers. It’s still here; he can feel it hovering. “It doesn’t seem to be _doing_ anything,” he admits. “It’s just kinda… there.”

“I agree. I feel extremely uncomfortable, but it doesn’t seem to be causing harm at the moment,” Cas says.

“Well, it’s up to you two if we keep moving forward or not. You think this thing is a threat, or just ambience?” 

Dean looks at Cas, the other man’s face a pale moon in the fading light of dusk. They both shrug, then turn back to Bobby in unison.

“Well I’m glad you two idjits are so decisive,” he says, and starts forward.

As they move through the grounds, the nameless thing continues to follow in their wake. It’s still nothing more than a presence, but… Dean reaches out and encounters Cas’s jacket sleeve. He tugs on it, and Cas turns, steps closer. They’re head-to-head now. The clean smell of Cas’s shampoo invades his senses, chases away the bad feeling of _wrong_ for a few seconds. 

“You know, it’s kinda like we’re being watched.”

Cas’s face clears with understanding. “You think it’s some sort of surveillance, or perhaps a sentry? It’s most likely the cultists, then, and they must be aware of our presence by now.”

What Cas says is logical, but like a puzzle piece that’s the slightest bit off; it’s the right shape, but the image doesn’t match the surrounding pieces. Dean has no idea how to put into words the _otherworldliness_ of the inky oiliness of this thing, the strange familiarity of it, so instead he says, “I don’t know, maybe?” and leaves it at that.

The cemetery is large, and Bobby has them searching in a grid. The majority of it is laid out on flat ground, but the edges trail either uphill or down, and clambering up and down the slope makes it slow going. They haven’t made much forward progress when dusk finally passes into oblivion and night falls; the moon is enough illumination to see by, but not enough to read headstones, and Bobby is forced to allow flashlights.

Dean turns his flashlight on the presence as soon as Bobby gives the go-ahead, but unsurprisingly, there’s nothing visible. The light itself seems to get swallowed up by encroaching gloom, and he reluctantly turns his back on the oily thing. Like Cas said, it’s not actually _doing_ anything to him, so he tries to ignore it as he gets back to checking headstones.

“These are all from the eighteen hundreds.” Sam marks off a section on their map when they reconvene. “Seems like the newer plots would be closer to the far side, on the other side of that mausoleum, maybe.”

Bobby chews over that for a moment. Skipping over all this and going to the other edge of the cemetery would shorten their search, though, and Dean is all for getting the fuck out of here sooner rather than later. Happily, Bobby seems to agree, and the group moves toward the mausoleum at the center of the cemetery, atop a slight rise: a dark, gloomy mass that seems to pulse with malevolence. But maybe his imagination is getting away from him. With effort, he reins in his wandering mind to focus on their surroundings.

Despite their best efforts to move soundlessly, the grass here is dead and crunches under their feet. It’s an unpleasant reminder of their first cemetery fiasco.

Therefore, it’s no surprise when Cas informs them that a Desecration spell is active in the area. 

What _is_ a surprise is what comes next.

“Shit!” Sam points ahead of them, toward the mausoleum. “There’s someone up there. And they see us.”

It’s too far to see the person clearly in the dark, but he’s willing to bet it’s Meg. She’s just standing there, like she’s waiting… but for what?

They’ve done no more than take a few cautious steps forward, weapons drawn, when a white-hot flash of light explodes under them. A shock of searing pain arcs through Dean’s feet and streaks through his body like lightning; through the halo of starbursts in his vision he sees the lone figure finally move toward them. Then everything goes black.


	19. Blood Red Skies

_And I've heard it said, that I'll not see tomorrow  
_ _If that's my destiny, it'll have to be_

When Dean wakes up, it’s to the sense that something isn’t right. He’s not sure why. Maybe he had another one of those murder dreams. Usually, he remembers them. But, wait—he hasn’t had one of those in a while. Fuck, this bed is uncomfortable. His neck hurts, and his back hurts—and what the hell is that _sound_? 

As the cotton stuffing in his head clears, the sound turns out to be voices. And it turns out the reason his whole body hurts is that he’s tied up and lying on a stone floor in a room too dimly lit to make out features or escape routes.

It explains a lot, but not enough.

He forces himself to sit still, to try and take stock of his surroundings. There’s no telling whether the voices are in the same room, if they can see him. The longer he can pretend to be out, the better. The argument suddenly gets louder, at least for one of the participants.

“—ruin everything, and I’ve worked _so_ hard,” a woman says. The voice that replies is deep and rumbly, and Dean can’t make it out. Whatever its owner says angers the woman more. “Because it’s what I have to do! I’m talking _cause_ , as in, reason to get up in the morning. And better me than _him_.”

A clattering noise prevents Dean from hearing the other person’s response.

“You think your church is safe? That’s rich. How do you think I found out about you in the first place… No, angel, there’s a mole in the organization…”

The clattering gets a little louder. Footsteps approach, accompanied by… squeaking?

“—think you can just come along, and what, I’m going to trust you? No. I’m keeping you here until my work is done. Can’t have you interfering any more than you already have. Believe me, I’m not your true enemy.”

Dean shifts himself around with some difficulty. He’s just managed to turn onto his side in time to watch two people come around the corner. He recognizes both of them easily.

“Cas,” he croaks out. He’d meant to stay quiet, but his friend is blindfolded, trussed up, and strapped to an ancient wooden desk chair being pushed by Meg. His eyes flick over Cas quickly. Other than the shallow cut high on his forehead, Cas seems—scratch that, he’s not fine. Dean’s jaw clenches when he notices the gauze bandaged to the inside of Cas’s left elbow. 

“Dean, you’re alright,” Cas says. His voice breaks.

“More or less. Didn’t know there was a blood drive today. They give you a cookie at least?” Dean grunts as he tries to sit up. Meg wheels the chair to a stop several feet away and shoves a ratty cloth gag into Cas’s mouth, then walks behind Dean. Hands roughly grab him under the arms and he’s effortlessly hauled to a sitting position against something solid. His back hits it hard, and his skull bounces against it. For a second, he sees stars. He blinks them away to see Meg trailing her hand along the rope. As her hand passes along, it tightens against him.

“I’m a little confused as to how one person managed to get the four of us. Five, if you count the dog,” Dean says once his head’s stopped spinning.

Meg looms over him. She grabs his jaw and squeezes, dark eyes staring into him. Against his will, a shiver trills down his spine. She smiles, but it’s just a hollow gesture. Far as he can tell, she’s utterly unconcerned. With a grunt, he pulls loose from her grip. She lets him.

“Oh, Dean, Dean, Dean. You should know by now I’m not just one person. I have a whole army at my beck and call. You may have slaughtered most of my human servants—and by the way, thanks _ever_ so much for that—but trust me when I tell you you’re only moments away from being ripped into pieces by zombies, or worse.”

The room is empty other than the three of them—he will not let himself dwell on the fact that Bobby and Sam are stashed somewhere else, and hopefully not in pieces—and he lets his expression slide into confidence, maybe even cockiness, fueled partly by the relief that at least some of the people Crowley had him kill were actually cultists.

“Your invisible army sure is scary,” he says, lip curling in a derisive smirk. “I’m trembl—” 

She backhands him across the face, and his head rocks with the impact. The coppery tang of blood blooms in his mouth, but it dissipates quickly. _Probably_ should have seen that coming. He doesn’t think the blow was meant to be anything more than admonishment, otherwise he’d have more than a bloody lip to deal with. She’s strong enough to manhandle him with ease. She could have done far more damage if she wanted to. There’s also the little fact that they were captured, and not annihilated outright. So—she doesn’t want to actually hurt him, or Cas? That could be a good sign—then he remembers Cas dying on the floor of a mausoleum, tortured and bled for her _work_ —so, you know, it’s far more likely that it’s a very, very bad sign that they’re still alive. 

He takes a breath and is about to spout out some cocky crap speech, but she cuts him off.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Meg says. “You think now that I’ve got you safely secured, I can be goaded into revealing my plan. You think you’ll find a way to escape and stop me. Well, Dean-o, I simply can’t let that happen. I’ve got enough magic in this place to hold your little ragtag team captive indefinitely. I’m working on a rather time-sensitive project, after all.”

She leaves him with a pat on the head. Dean strains against his bindings as she goes toward Cas, but he can’t even move now. He’s only tied with rope, so there must be magic involved, just like she said. Dean seethes as she caresses Cas’s cheek with a tender touch; the other man jerks his head away from her. It brings a smile to her face; could be his imagination, but she looks wistful. It’s the first real emotion that she’s displayed beside anger, and a wave of heat washes through him. She tricked and betrayed Cas in the past, kidnapped and tortured and tried to kill him, and she _still_ thinks they have some sort of connection, that she can feel _sorry_ about it, and it can mean something? 

“Get the fuck away from him!”

She ignores Dean and bends down to Cas’s ear, but the words are meant to carry and Dean hears them clearly. “He’ll only disappoint you, you know. For what it’s worth, I _am_ sorry it’s come to this, Clarence.” Cas grunts in protest through his gag, but she’s already walking away from them. She’s not a tall woman, but she sweeps toward the exit with long and graceful strides before quickly disappearing around the corner.

 

A dark, windowless room by its very nature makes it difficult to figure the passing of time. It was just after nightfall when they’d stumbled into Meg’s trap, but with as much magic as she had at her command, there’s no telling how long she’d kept them unconscious after their capture. If she still has preparations to make, and they’re still alive, it must still be sometime before Sunday night—before the Hunter’s Moon, before she’s completed her ritual. There’s still time, if they can just get out of this fucking place. But no matter how hard he struggles, his bindings stay tight.

Dean’s brain taunts him with a memory of Balthazar’s long-winded explanation of the magical properties of the God-Weapons. He’s pretty sure the swords have Freedom of Movement, and that sure would be nice right about now, but Meg divested them of their fancy weapons because she’s not a fucking idiot. He never even figured out what his new gun could do, so it’s only an educated guess that it’d be similar to the swords Balthazar was pushing on them. Still, whether or not his gun has a paralysis-breaking property, having it would be far better than the fat load of nothing he currently has at his disposal.

His mind wanders, gets stuck on another facet of their situation. She deliberately put him and Cas in the same room. But why? Is she trying to cause tension? Maybe she’d thought Dean would have a bigger problem with Cas’s past, his involvement with her. That has to be the reason behind her little game, right? She’s not far off the mark. He knows he’s not really the kind to forgive and forget easily. But the past few weeks… they’ve been through a lot. And he’s changed. It’s not like he’s a different person or anything, but the old Dean would have ranted and raved about Cas hiding things from him, would have been pissy about it for weeks. New Dean? It’s not that he doesn’t _care_ , or that he’s forgotten; it’s more like… Cas is his friend, damn near almost family at this point (his mind shies away from the potential of other things), and the guy doesn’t really have anyone else. Balthazar definitely does not count. Dean can’t turn his back on Cas, not now. And God knows Dean’s made plenty of his own poor decisions lately. So he kinda gets it.

In any case, whatever her reasons, he’s glad they’re together. It means he gets to pass the time by being annoying, telling stories about Bobby and Sam, and what happy things he remembers of Mom. There’s not much else that will distract him from how numb his ass is from the cold stone floor. The best part is, Cas is a captive audience (literally), and can’t do a damn thing to shut Dean up. 

“So it’s opening night, right, and Sam is in charge of the lighting or whatever, and his crush is doing sound next to him, and he—get this, he gets so flustered that he keeps flickering the lights while the lead is doing her monologue thingy, and he doesn’t even notice because he’s staring at the girl next to him in the booth. Ruined the whole production. Man, I gave him shit for that for _years_ —”

Dean pauses his dramatic retelling of Sam’s days as a high school theater kid when a rumble shakes the building.

“Did you feel that?” 

Cas nods frantically.

“Shit. I’m guessing northeastern Illinois isn’t earthquake country.” Dean strains against his bindings, hoping they’ve loosened, or that the spell is starting to wear off, _anything_ … “We do _not_ want to be stuck down here if the foundation starts to go.”

The building shakes another time, and miracle of all miracles, he feels a subtle slackening in the ropes. “Holy fuck, it’s wearing off.” He wriggles some more, fruitlessly at first, but then the ropes just drop free and slither down to the floor. It only takes a moment to work the stiffness out of his limbs, and then he’s up and freeing Cas from the blindfold and gag. He works on the ropes, but the bindings are still secure. 

“What the hell…? Why did mine come loose, but not yours?” Dean frowns down at his friend for a moment. Something tickles at the back of his mind, and he’s not sure if it’ll work, but… 

Cas stares at him with narrowed eyes. “What are you thinking, Dean?”

“Okay, um, this is going to sound cheesy but…” Dean clears his throat. “Be Free.” He brushes his fingers against the binding, and it slips away. He pulls the ropes off quickly, and Cas groans as he stands upright. 

“That gag was disgusting,” Cas says. His mouth is etched in the grumpiest frown Dean has ever had the pleasure to see.

“Not the time, Cas. Need to figure out how to get out of here...uh. Okay.” The heavy wood door is unlocked and swings open smoothly when Dean tugs on the handle. They step out into a dim hallway lit by honest-to-god torches. Dean pulls the nearest one down from its sconce and faces Cas. “I feel like goddamn Indiana Jones. So, uh, how much blood did you lose? You good to go?” 

“I’m fine. Strangely, she didn’t need much. I suspect she had reserves from the last time I was in her care. Dean… does it seem to you like our escape is turning out to be suspiciously easy?”

Dean grunts in agreement. “Kind of feels like someone is letting us out, doesn’t it? But I ain’t gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. Where the fuck are we, anyway? Looks like a freaking dungeon.” 

“I believe this is the convent.”

“Huh. If you say so.” Dean carefully opens a door and peers into the room beyond. Nothing visible in there except boxes and an eons worth of dust. He shuts the door softly and looks ahead down the long hallway. The walls, ceiling, and floor are all stone. Every fifteen feet or so carved stone pillars hold up arches with little scrolls and leaf decorations on them. It seems like a bit much for the basement of a convent. Doors line the hallway at evenly spaced intervals, each one made of plain, dark wood.

“Place is creepy as hell,” Dean murmurs. 

“It was abandoned in the 60s,” Cas says. “I’m not sure what else you’d expect.” He opens a door on his side of the hallway, but walks on without comment.

“Aren’t most buildings from this period in this area made from brick, or wood, even? Why stone? Why so…” Dean waves his free hand in an aimless circle, “dungeon-y? Anyway, whatever. Doesn’t matter I guess. Don’t suppose you have any idea where the old man and Sam are?”

“I do not,” Cas says. “If I did, we wouldn’t be checking every room.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dean opens his next door and inhales sharply. “Hey, Cas, is this where Meg had you?”

This room is small and dark, but there are footprints in the dust that lead to a small table and a chair. On the table lie a used syringe and other needles used to draw blood. Dean lowers the torch; on the floor lie several cut ropes. The room smells of old blood.

Cas comes and looks over Dean’s shoulder and brushes against his back. “No, I don’t think so. I was tied to a wheeled chair, remember?”

“So who was she bleeding in here? Can’t have been Sam or Bobby, right? Because neither of them are Celestial like you.”

Cas frowns. “I have no idea. I hope whoever it is either managed to escape, or she’s kept them alive.”

There’s nothing more this room can tell them, so Dean shuts the door and they move on down the hall, which ends up ahead where it intersects with another dark passageway, capped by a lone door with wrought metal details of what he thinks are scrolls and leaves. Dean gently releases the latch, and it swings open easily. “Yahtzee!” 

Most of the rooms they’d checked were completely empty; a few were piled with crates or trunks, clearly untouched for many years. This room is different. He ducks inside, Cas following closely on his heels, a reassuring presence at his back. A large table takes up much of the tight space, and metal shelves line the back wall of the room. The table is covered in herbs and other weird-looking plants, bowls, a mortar and pestle, and several mostly-empty bottles of assorted liquids. The shelves hold more bottles, and several curse boxes to boot.

“Looks like her workroom,” Dean says. “See? No three-foot layer of dust.”

Cas nods. He walks along the table, face scrunched up in concentration. He trails his hand along the objects littering the surface, much the same way he did in the mausoleum where they found him. He pauses, then brings a pinch of herbs up to his nose.

“I can’t determine exactly what she was working on, but I’ll hazard a guess that these are for the ritual. Some of these herbs were very recently dried. It’s possible she’s been hiding out here for one or possibly even two weeks. I’d imagine that’s why you weren’t able to find her while you were… well, ‘working’ for Crowley.”

“Mm-hmm,” Dean agrees, attention caught by something on the far side of the room. A smaller table—not even a table, he now sees, but a stack of large wooden crates—pushed up against the side wall shows several visible lumps under a dirty woven covering. Magic hums underneath the cloth, muted and diminished by the worn material, but noticeable nonetheless. It’s familiar magic, one that resonates through him down to his bones. Trusting that this isn’t the type of magic that only seems friendly until it bites you in the ass, he swipes the cloth aside and it flutters down the floor with a soft _fwump_. Now completely unobstructed, he sees why the hum was so familiar. “Sweet. Hey, Cas, c’mere. Found our stuff.” 

“How fortuitous,” Cas says drily. Still, he picks up the short sword gifted by Balthazar. 

“Why didn’t she destroy them?”

Cas tosses him a look. “Items like these can’t _be_ destroyed. Think about it. Why would we store all of those relics at the church if we could simply destroy them instead?”

Dean doesn’t answer. He roots around in his duffle bag, which had been left abandoned on the floor next to the crates. Everything _seems_ to be in there, but the sense that they’re running out of time is only increasing. His thorough inventory will have to wait. He tucks his holy gun (and that’s a concept he might never get used to) into the waistband of his jeans, stashes Bobby’s and Sam’s guns in his bag, and swings it up over his shoulder. When he looks over to Cas, he’s pleased to note that the other man found his messenger bag. He rummages around in it for a moment, and pulls out a wand and a scroll. 

“Here, take these in case we get separated or… ” Cas trails off, then shrugs. “If we can’t stop Meg from conducting the ritual, we may at least be able to render Sister Maria Albert’s corpse unusable with the spell that Sam found.”

Dean makes a note to give the wand to Sam since he already knows the blessing it contains. The scroll is a spell he’s unfamiliar with, and he frowns down at the thick paper, but it refuses to make sense.

“Alright. Hopefully it won’t come to that. We good to go?” Dean says as he tucks the wand and scroll into his jacket, and Cas nods. “Awesome. Gotta find those two idiots and the dog, and then lets go ki— _bag_ ourselves a fucking necromancer.” 

There’s a small argument over which way to go or whether they should split up (any idiot knows you _never fucking split up_ ), but Dean wins and they stay together and take the left. This hallway is wider and better lit, with fewer doors lining it. As luck would have it, it’s also a shorter hallway that ends at a spiral set of stone steps leading up (score another one for Dean). A small door is nestled off to the right, tucked under the steps. Cas tests the handle, but the door is locked. Dean digs out his lockpicks, and unlocking the door doesn’t take much effort. The door swings open to reveal three startled occupants.

“Took you long enough,” Bobby grumbles.

 

The sun hasn’t quite set yet, and the sky is ablaze with orange and purple streaks tripping along the bottoms of clouds sitting high in the atmosphere.

“We’ve maybe got an hour before the moon rises,” Bobby says. He pulls his ratty trucker cap off, scrubs a hand through his hair, and shoves the cap back on his head. 

The air is dense with residual magic. It prickles along Dean’s body, tickles the sensitive skin of his nose as he breathes. Reminds him a bit of a hot, humid summer day in Kansas, the kind of day where the air is so thick you could drown in it. Difference is, magic is cold. It tingles, pricks at you. He rubs a hand down his arms, hoping to calm his goosebumps a little. His skin is overly sensitive, though, and the action only makes him feel itchy as the fabric of his plaid shirt abrades his skin.

They make their way through what used to be a garden. Roses have grown wild over the years, taking over the weed-choked stone paths. Brambles pluck at his sleeves as they pass. It’s mid-October; the first frost must have come and gone, yet a few blooms still cling to life, their perfume sitting lightly in the air. The heavier tang of rotting leaves and dirt hovers underneath the scent of roses. It’s not exactly unpleasant—zombies stink far more than dead leaves. 

What Dean finds strange is the utter silence. They should probably take that to mean that there are zombies around somewhere, although Sam and Bones are leading them, and they both have a good sense for the undead; still, he tugs at Sam’s sleeve and the group comes to a stop. Sam follows him a little way away from the others; Bobby glares after them, probably annoyed at the delay, but Cas looks puzzled: his brow has its usual furrow, mouth downturned, head tilted. Dean turns back to Sam.

“It’s pretty quiet,” he says. He doesn’t mean to be furtive about it, but his voice comes out as a near-whisper.

Sam nods. “Yeah, but there’s nothing here that’s going to jump out at us. Not in the immediate vicinity, at least. Pretty sure we’re headed in the right direction, though; everything seems concentrated down that way.” He points toward a tangled, overgrown path beyond where Bobby and Cas wait for them.

“Mmmm. Something just feels _off_ about this whole thing. It’s… too easy, y’know?”

“The mysterious third party that let you loose?”  
  
“That, and…” Dean scratches at the back of his neck. “I overheard Meg talking to Cas. Some of it, at least… just little snatches of conversation. It sounded like…” Like what? That Meg wasn’t the _real_ bad guy? That there’s some other deeper game afoot that they know nothing about? No, that’s pretty unlikely. It’s pretty obvious from all the research they did that Meg is working a ritual to raise some badass supervillain, and he’s fairly sure she’s also trying to sow discord amongst them all. Especially him and Cas, for whatever reason. Right. So Meg needs to be stopped, no matter what else might be going on. He’s got no idea where all this doubt is coming from. His recent experience as the bad guy is probably just making him weird. “Nevermind, it’s nothing. Let’s go.”

 

The main buildings are all at the top of the bluffs, and the path out of the garden takes them down a slope. Wooden steps were built into the hillside at one point, but after fifty-some years of neglect, few of them remain intact. Most are rotted clean through, and Dean slips and slides his way across dewy grass and weeds and chunks of soft wood as Bones and Sam lead them unerringly toward the graveyard.

They’re about halfway down when Dean’s foot shoots out from under him, and he ends up on his ass on the damp ground. The grass is dead under his hand. He looks back—partway up the slope it abruptly transitions from healthy, overgrown weeds to brown papery husks. 

“Hey, guys, check it out.” He points back up the slope. “Desecration, right? If that starts up there, and we passed the other edge coming up the other side of the cemetery, looks like she might be working out of the mausoleum, not a grave.”

“Well, looks like that’s our next stop, then,” Bobby says.

Because of course it would be.

“I’m really not fond of mausoleums,” Cas grumbles as he extends a hand to Dean. 

“Really? I have one as my summer home. You should come visit,” Dean says as soon as he’s back on his feet. Cas levels an unimpressed look at him. “What? Do I got grass stains on my butt?”

“You pick the strangest times to make jokes.”

Sam and Bobby have gotten a little ahead of them now. Dean studiously watches the dog track whatever it is he’s tracking as he weaves back and forth ahead of Sam.

“Maybe. Or maybe the best time to have a sense of humor is when you’re staring certain death in the face.”

Cas is silent for several long beats. “Perhaps,” he finally admits. They walk side by side, a few feet behind the others. The slope tapers off and the going gets easier, but the group’s pace slows noticeably as the mausoleum crawls into view. It’s a lot bigger than the last mausoleum, but sparser in architectural details, more sombre. Less ostentatious. It’s more fitting, somehow. Dead and crumbling roses surround the structure, but it’s not clear if that’s an effect of the spell, or if they’d succumbed to the elements. They group up in front of a plain metal door, no one making the move to open it.

“This place sure is cheery,” Bobby says.

Sam snorts, and Cas huffs out a small laugh. It wasn’t even that funny, but they’re all a little keyed up at the moment, and it kinda proves Dean’s point about making jokes at inopportune times. They settle down and get back to business, the day’s quickly fading light and rising moon an unhappy reminder of their tight schedule. Dean does a cursory check for traps and comes up empty. Cas, being more familiar with magic, does the same, looking for any magical versions. It’s not until Dean watches Cas mutter softly to himself that he realizes the cleric had been doing that every so often since they’d gotten free: in the convent hallways, the garden, the cemetery. Huh. He’d thought Cas was just mad at himself for getting caught. Well—he still could be. It’s just manifesting as hypervigilance instead of the angry, under-the-breath muttering Dean would do.

“There are no magical traps or glyphs here,” Cas says, and Dean snaps back to the present. 

Bobby eases open the door. For a place that’s been abandoned for fifty years, the mausoleum door sure is well maintained—it swings open easily without making a sound. Bones trots through the doorway, Sam following with shotgun at the ready.

_Here we go_. Dean follows his brother inside and darkness closes in around him.


	20. Heroes

_We can beat them, just for one day  
_ _We can be Heroes, just for one day_

Dean adjusts to the dark quickly and takes stock of their surroundings. They’ve walked into a long hallway, lit by torches in sconces just like what they saw in the convent. They’re only a few steps inside when he feels it again—the presence.

The prickle along his skin is the same as the other night. He’d forgotten about it, what with all the other crap going on, and hadn’t felt it outside the mausoleum just now. He’s still not sure what to make of it. It’s stronger in here; it surrounds him, pulls at his limbs, his clothing. Each step becomes difficult until he stops; then, it flows into place around him, close. Too close. It’s heavy and thick and at the edge of his awareness there’s a hint of familiarity. An invisible tendril caresses his cheek, and he shudders.

“Dean, what’s wrong?” Sam’s voice is nearby but still too distant; he knows that Sam is hovering next to him, physically near, but he feels a million miles away. A distant rustling comes from the other direction, and a hand grabs his shoulder, words are spoken. That would be Cas. He, too, is far away—his voice is muffled, like Dean is submerged underwater. His heart thuds slowly, loudly, each heartbeat a rush of water in his ears.

_Just breathe_ , he tells himself. He takes a deep breath in, lets it out slowly, pushing the air through his lips. The rushing in his ears settles after a few breaths, and his head stops spinning. He hadn’t even realized it had been.

“I’m fine,” he says. Nothing comes out, so he tries again. “I’m fine, guys.”

“What happened? You went still. You looked so… lost,” Cas says. He’s still gripping Dean’s shoulder tightly. It’s comforting, but as soon as Dean looks at it, Cas removes his hand.

“Dean?”

His head swivels over to Bobby. His surrogate father has concern etched into every line in his face. Given Bobby’s an old fart, there are quite a few of ‘em.

Dean swallows, clears his throat. “So, uh, you guys remember that thing Cas and I felt in the cemetery last time? It was that. I think. It was the same, but different. It was _more_. I think it was—” He pauses. He’s not sure about this, but they don’t have time for him to be weird about it. He’s going to have to say it. Get it over with. “It felt familiar, in a weird way. It might have been trying to communicate with me. It reminded me of—it was like the blade, sorta. I don’t know how else to describe it.” 

Cas grabs Dean’s shoulders in both hands. This time his grip is strong, not meant to comfort. “Are you certain? It felt similar?”

“Dude, chill.” Dean blinks, throws off Cas’s hands. “Yeah, I’m sure. It wasn’t _exactly_ the same, but yeah, it was close enough.”

Cas frowns and starts pacing. Bobby and Sam share a look; they seem to be just as puzzled as Dean.

“Cas, what’s going on? What do you think it is?” Sam asks.

“It felt different to me, I can see that now. Dean and I—now that he’s a Paladin, we share some similar abilities, but there are subtle differences. Our ability to detect things, for instance. I’m more attuned to general evil. I believe that you, Dean, are more attuned to demons. Demons are frequently evil, so that must have been what I was sensing the other night. As a specific _kind_ of evil, the sense would feel different to Dean.” Cas looks at Dean, eyes wide. Apologetic, almost, but what’s he sorry for? “Dean… given your recent experience with that cursed blade, I believe you were already more susceptible to demonic influence. And I’m quite certain that’s why it felt familiar to you.”

“Wait. What? So that blade was a demon?”

“That was our best guess when the Church catalogued it for storage after your death.”

Dean shakes his head. “Okay, so. I was corrupted by a demon in that blade, so that’s why this place is affecting me so strongly? Because this Abaddon thing is also a demon?”

“In conjunction with your innate abilities as a Paladin, yes, I believe that to be the case.”

Sam pushes between them. “Cas, are you saying that Abaddon is already out there? We’re too late?”

Cas shrugs. “Dean would have a stronger sense of that than I would.”

Everyone turns to look at him. Dean swallows, then takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. “Okay, okay, give me a second. Back off. I need some space.” He probably doesn’t, not to do whatever it is he’s about to do. But he walks a few steps away and closes his eyes. It’s easier to relax when they aren’t all hovering over him like he’s a child in need of minding.

A few quiet seconds pass. Nothing. He frowns. That tickle in the back of his brain is trying to get him to do something—feeling like an idiot, he pushes out. At first, nothing happens. Then suddenly, he feels it; feels a part of himself extending, spreading out like an expanding bubble. His awareness shoots out along with it, sliding over most things without interest. Tendrils of the presence stick out like neon signs, but they soon flicker out and fade into darkness. Off in the distance, something else flickers on. A black and red ball of light, glowing dimly, centered around… something… 

Dean’s concentration snaps back like a rubber band. He blinks, clearing the last of the sense from his vision.

“Holy _shit_.” Dean wipes a drop of sweat off of his forehead. “I can’t believe that worked.”

He turns around to find three pairs of eyes anxiously watching him. The dog is looking off down the hall—the same direction he saw that weird dark ball of light.

“Uh, so. I think that was Abaddon, but it’s not like, _here_ yet. Not physically. The tendril things aren’t that important, far as I can tell. The biggest hit was off that way, surrounding a corpse, I think.”

“I’m no expert, but I think that means we’d better hurry,” Bobby says, and Dean couldn’t agree more.

 

This is officially the weirdest mausoleum Dean has ever been in. Not that he’s been in many, mind you, but something about this place just isn’t right. The hallway goes for a while uninterrupted, nothing but the occasional torch, then suddenly they’re at a corner going off to the right. The architecture is more detailed: carved stone pillars bookend a heavy wood door banded with wrought iron. An iron gate sits in front of it. The door is closed, but the gate was never shut properly behind the last person to enter. It must’ve been Meg, although whatever set them free could also have beat them here, and ain’t _that_ a comforting thought?

Cas places a hand against the door. His face crinkles up in concentration. 

“I don’t sense any traps of the magical variety,” he says as he backs away. He gestures at Dean. Dean rolls his eyes, but he can’t really blame Cas for being overly cautious, not when they’ve already been caught once. He checks for wires, switches, or latches, and sees nothing.

“We’re good.”

“Well, alright then. Get your wands and guns ready, boys, ‘cos this is it,” Bobby says. Sam grasps the door handle and gives it a gentle pull. It opens just as easily as the rest of the doors they’ve encountered here.

Beyond the door is another dark space lit by wildly guttering torches. Plaques line the walls, each signifying the final resting place for members of the convent. An altar with a deep red cloth draped over it rests in the center of the room, while a chalice—pretty obviously _the_ chalice, made of hammered metal and tarnished with age, with no frills or decoration that Dean can see—occupies a spot in the middle of the altar. The reflected light flickers oddly across the uneven surface of the chalice. A seemingly haphazard selection of herbs liberally covers the altar. Darkly glinting metal sensors dangle from hooks in the ceiling; their incense hangs heavily in the air, much like the last mausoleum, and makes the space seem smaller and cramped. But that’s not the worst part: mounds of rotting corpses fill each corner of the room, a sign that Meg has at least partway finished her ritual. Dean covers his nose, trying to block out the smell, but his arm drops away when he spies something _off_. The zombie corpses are old, rotted chunks of flesh that can’t even really form a body now that magic isn’t holding them together; whatever scraps of fabric may remain, they’re just as ratty and as faded as the corpses, so the brightly colored red and white striped shirt in the back corner of the mausoleum stands out. This clearly belongs to someone more recently deceased, and that probably means it’s the mysterious blood donor.

Dean tugs on Cas’s sleeve and directs his attention to the body; his face falls and he leans in close to Dean and whispers, “Oh, no. Alfie. I had hoped…”  
“Who?”

“Our server at that diner in Wisconsin.”

“Shit, you’re right. Poor bastard. I _knew_ that old lady was way too into him. So—wait, does that make him like you? Celestial? And did you know?”

“Yes, he was most likely Aasimar, but it’s not like we can smell each other, Dean. Although that does mean it would be an extraordinary coincidence if she’d happened upon both of us by chance…”

Dean quickly picks up where Cas is going with this. “So she has to have some way of identifying you guys. ‘Spose we should ask her about that before we k—when we _capture_ her.”

There’s movement off to the left, accompanied by a soft noise, the rustling of old fabric and of one thing sliding against another. His gaze darts over—Meg is there, her back to them, and she hasn’t noticed them yet. She’s too busy pulling a surprisingly well-preserved body out of one of the cavities in the wall; it’s wrapped in a shroud, but a pale arm extends outward, and a shock of improbably bright red hair and a bit of forehead are visible. She carries it to the altar with ease and sets it down carefully on the surface, pulling the wrapping away to expose a dirty, silvery dress. But suddenly she stills. She turns a fraction; the profile of her face gleams in the flickering light of the torches, but her dark hair soaks up the light without reflection.

“Should have known he’d let you out.” Meg sounds neither surprised nor angry at discovering their presence. Resigned, perhaps.  
  
“To whom are you referring?” Cas asks, but Meg whirls around with a yell. Black fire shoots from her hands and streaks toward them. Dean throws himself to the side and tumbles down to the floor. So no talking, then; at least she’d been in too much of a hurry to aim well. Unless she hadn’t meant to aim at all—the fire spreads quickly from the wall it hit down to the floor, and they’re soon completely cut off from the other side of the room, where Cas and Bobby huddle up against the wall. Sam went the same direction as Dean, but far more gracefully, as he rolls and is quickly upright and firing at Meg. 

 

“Don’t kill her!” Dean calls out as he struggles to his feet, but Sam doesn’t appear to hear him and fires again. “Damn it, Sam!”

Sam glances at Dean and frowns. “We have to at least _weaken_ her, Dean, you know that. She won’t go quietly.”

“I know, I know.” Out of the corner of his eye, bright light lances from Cas’s side of the room and strikes her. She glows white-hot for a second and falls to her knees. “Hold up, guys! We need her alive!”

“You have no idea what you’re doing!” Meg screams, spitting blood from where she’s crouched over on the floor. Another burst of fire streaks from her fingertips, hurtling too fast in Bobby’s direction. She misses again, but the fire envelopes the far wall. Cas and Bobby have nowhere to go but forward, and they shuffle toward Meg to distance themselves from the fire. Meg pushes herself back to her feet and stumbles over to the altar. She braces herself against it, leaning heavily on her arms. “You’re forcing my hand, boys. Leave, or you’ll fuck everything up!”

“What exactly are we ‘fucking up’, Meg? Why don’t you tell us instead of hinting and taunting at something you refuse to explain? From where I stand, it looks like you’re committing an act of unspeakable evil. We cannot and will not let you proceed.”

“I already told you, Clarence. I don’t trust you. I _can’t_ trust you. You’re his puppets.”

“ _Whose_ puppets?” Cas says, but she shakes her head and starts chanting. Light swirls over one of the piles of corpses, a familiar light that Dean really, _really_ hadn’t wanted to ever see again. Shit, shit, shit. They’d been banking on her having used up her creature creating abilities for the day. Apparently that’s not the case. The cinder ghoul has done no more than coalesce into solid form when Dean takes two rapid shots at it. Next to him, Sam fires his shotgun. The cinder ghoul explodes into a burst of flame, its ashy remains dropping to the ground. Dean stares down at his gun. Sam catches his eye with a ‘who knew’ kinda look, and Dean can’t help but agree: these new weapons are fucking _awesome_. 

At the altar, Meg is looking at them with dawning concern. She’s probably regretting not killing them yesterday, or at the very least not hiding their weapons in a better place. But she recovers quickly and lets loose another bolt of fire, right in their direction. It splits between him and Sam and hits the wall at their backs. He can feel the heat and slimy darkness roiling off of it, but before Dean can even put his thoughts together, much less take a shot at her, Meg freezes in place. Dean looks over to the other side of the room and catches Cas at the end of a spell. He holds something small, a something that kinda looks like a chunk of iron.

“I didn’t want to have to do this,” Cas says. He strides toward the altar, beckons Bobby to follow. Dean shakes himself out of his stupor and walks foward, Sam by his side.

Whatever Cas did, it’s fucking creepy. Meg is completely paralyzed, still crouched over and leaning against the altar, one arm raised in a spell-casting gesture. Her eyes dart around the room wildly, her chest rises and falls with her shallow breaths, and blood sluggishly pumps from multiple gunshot wounds, but that’s the only extent to which she can move. 

“I’m sorry, Meg. You seem to think you had a mission to complete, but summoning demonic entities to our world is unacceptable no matter what your reasoning. However, we’re not going to kill you. You’ll be going back to the Church; they’ll take good care of you there. They’ll help you get better,” Cas says, his matter-of-fact tone belied by the sorrow etched onto his face. That Cas thinks she’s _unwell_ , that she can recover, like evil is an illness rather than a choice makes Dean’s blood boil. But he swallows down his anger, because Cas did the same thing for him. Because Cas thought Dean deserved a second chance.

And suddenly it clicks into place. He’s angry not because Cas thinks Meg needs help, but because he’s doing the same for Meg as he did for Dean, and Dean wants to be special; he doesn’t want to fucking _share_ Cas’s compassion with that evil witch. Necromancer. Whatever. He sighs under his breath. Of all the times to become a whiny, jealous baby, he picks the _worst possible_ moment.

Dean shakes it off and sets the jar of silvery dust they need to sanctify the corpse down on the altar, but before he can get to work, Bobby interjects.

“Dean, let’s get Meg secured first, before that paralysis spell wears off. Straighten her up… There. We’ll just do her hands for now, and a gag so she can’t cast any spells.”

Dean and Sam adjust her limbs to the appropriate positions, and Dean subtly checks her health while he does. She’s been injured in several places, most noticeably from gunshots, but she’s strong and tough, and not in danger of dying just yet.

At first, her eyes had darted between them, not lingering on any one person for more than a second. Once Bobby starts wrapping the enchanted rope around her wrists, though, she stares straight ahead, wide eyes fixed on the door behind them. Suddenly, she starts blinking rapidly.

“Hey, Cas, I think something’s wrong with—”

A loud _fwoooom_ erupts into the room from behind him. A split second later, when Meg is engulfed in flames, he understands that _she_ was the target, not them. And far too late he realizes she was trying to warn them. But he’s already moving, diving behind the altar, cut off from seeing what it was that attacked.

She dies without uttering a sound; her unrecognizably charred body falls to the mausoleum floor, and smoke gently wafts up from the remains. Flickers of fire glow softly from deep within as it crumbles, the embers mesmerizing as Dean stares at it for too many seconds, trying to make sense of what happened, trying to force himself to understand that this was _Meg_ , and she was not a good person. She’s not Mom, this is not Mom, even though Mom died a lot like this. He swallows down burgeoning panic because it’s the only thing he can do, because there’s something or someone else here and it won’t be long before whatever or whoever it is attacks them next.

He’s jostled by a body next to him, pushing him further along the back of the altar. 

It’s Sam. The edges of his hair are a little singed and he’s got soot on his face, but he seems otherwise alright. Except for being scared shitless, but, you know. Sam stops shoving and drops down to a squat. The dog huddles up next to him.

“What the fuck was that?” Dean asks.

Sam purses his lips and grimaces. “Didn’t get a good look. Too busy trying not to get burned alive.”

“Tell me about it. That was some flambé,” Dean says. He puts on a strained smile, but Sam’s no longer looking at him, his attention focused instead on Bobby and Cas, who are stranded out in the open, stock-still with their hands raised. They back away slowly, incrementally. Whoever’s out there isn’t familiar to them, so Dean takes a chance and scoots up until he can peek over the edge of the altar. There’s too much crap covering it. He shifts a little, and there—

Well, crap.

“You were supposed to kill her, and as per usual, I’m stuck cleaning up your mess. Was that really so much to ask, Dean? Well, at least you lot had good timing.” 

Crowley. Fucking _Crowley_.

He’d hoped he’d never have to hear that grating voice again. How the guy found them, Dean has _no_ idea. But suddenly, a lot of the things Meg had said start to make sense. The possibility that she was right, that she wasn’t the real problem, seeps into his thoughts. Crowley’d already used him and Sam to his own ends, why wouldn’t he do so again? Crowley was awfully obsessed with killing Meg, but judging by that journal, by how long he’s had spies, he was even more obsessed with the original cult, with their rituals… with Josie and Abaddon…

Dean shares a look with Sam and gestures frantically to the altar. Sam shakes his head and Dean frowns. He slows his gestures down, makes them more precise and Sam’s lips thin out into a hard line, but he nods slowly all the same.

“One measly little task, and you manage to blow it. I’m beginning to think my faith in you was misplaced. Oh, stand up. I’m not going to burn you alive,” Crowley says.

Dean stands, bolstered by the reassuring presence of Sam standing at his side, shotgun at the ready. Crowley completely ignores Bobby and Cas, and now Dean knows why: they’re cowed into submission by a giant black hellhound, probably the same one Crowley had threatened him with. His gaze flicks back to Crowley, who’s staring at him with a weird little smile fixed in place. Crowley looks different—it’s a subtle change, probably only noticeable with Dean’s new demon sense: tendrils undulate around him, waving back and forth like seaweed. A black, oily shimmer surrounds the man and darkens the air around him.

“What’s this all about, Crowley?”

The smile widens, but doesn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t fret, you’ve just done the world a favor. Well, I did the hard part, but you certainly made it easier for me. You found the correct spell, after all, and managed to get here. Now, let’s see…” Crowley saunters up to the altar and pokes around through the materials Meg had left out. “Yes, good timing indeed.”

Crowley drops a roughly woven bag on the altar and dumps the contents out. He starts sorting things out, acting as if they aren’t even a threat to him.

“How the hell were you spying on us?” Bobby asks. Crowley ignores the question. It’s fairly obvious, anyway—the mole in the church that Meg mentioned wasn’t _her_ mole, but Crowley’s. 

Dean brings his gun up. “I don’t know what the hell you’re planning on doing, but you’d better stop, or I’ll smite the ever-loving crap outta you, so help me.”

Crowley chuckles at that. “Ooh, I do love a good smiting. It satisfies a certain itch I get every once in awhile.” 

Dean’s arm drops in distaste, and the gun clatters dully against the altar. He keeps his hand near the gun, though. This ain’t over, not by a long shot. 

“Meg— _dear_ , sweet, departed Meg—thought that she could actually gain the upper hand in our little civil war by getting to the corpse first and performing her own little ritual. She was shortsighted. What this represents—” Crowley waves his hand over the preserved body on the altar “—is untapped power. Properly shackled, of course. We wouldn’t want Abaddon running around in a human body without restraint.”

“You think you can shackle something as powerful as an Abyssal demon? You’re utterly delusional,” Cas says. 

“Nuh-uh-uh.” Crowley shakes a finger at Cas. “I’m very well aware that a demon can’t be shackled. You _can_ , however, shackle the vessel intended to house it.”

Bobby pipes up. “And what on God’s green earth makes you think we’re just going to sit here quietly while you finish this little ritual and bring death and destruction to the world?”

“My army, of course.” He snaps his fingers, and several people pop into existence. Dean blinks—they all have black eyes. Black like Meg’s eyes that time in Madison, black like how his own eyes had gotten when he’d had the blade. Which means they’re probably demons, or possessed by demons, or cursed by demons. They can’t be reasoned with if they’re under Crowley’s influence. He knows that all too well. Dean slides his hand into his jacket pocket and eases out the small figurine that’s his link to Chuck.

“Now, Dean, I’m shocked but quite pleased that you survived after you were stolen from me. The experience has changed you, I can see that. You’ve got perseverance, and that’s a handy quality to have. You were a star pupil; you had potential, and because I’m the sentimental sort, I’ll extend this one-time offer to you. Come back to work with me. You’ll be my right-hand man.”

“Are you—are you fucking _kidding_ me? The only reason I ever worked for you in the first place is because I was desperate, and you tricked me. You knew that blade was damned. You knew what Meg was actually up to, and you made me believe she was the bad guy and you were the, uh… well, the less-bad guy. I’ve got news for you. You played those cards already, dick, and there’s no way I’m gonna fall for that again.” 

“Are you sure?” The tendrils around Crowley shift; he reaches inside his suit jacket and pulls out something wrapped in a dark cloth, something so evil it seeps black ooze. The oily, sludgy substance dribbles to the altar surface and pools there; it slinks along the red cloth, advancing toward Dean, almost reaching out to him.

Dean shudders. He wonders—but it doesn’t matter how Crowley got his hands on the blade again. It only matters that he did, and that he brought it here. 

The bond was severed. The thing doesn’t have a hold over him anymore; it can’t even communicate with him, because if it could, it would. Yet its presence provokes some kind of resonance in his body, or maybe his soul; he aches for it, just as he’s repulsed by it. There’s something dark buried deep inside him that God hadn’t managed to clean up when he was brought back to life. Maybe Crowley was right; maybe he was made for this. Maybe this is his calling. His head pounds and his arm twitches, about to reach out— 

A hand touches his elbow, gentle and hesitant; Sam is still with him, but—

_Sam is still with him_.

No matter what, Sam wouldn’t be here if he didn't want to be; he’s too strong-willed and independent. He would have left years ago—or, hell, he never would have left school and returned to them if he didn’t care. Sam’s here for him, as long as Dean needs him to be, and so are Bobby and Cas. He’s not alone in this. _He’s not alone_. The burgeoning headache dissipates and the tight vise around his chest eases away; he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding his breath until he relaxes; the rush of oxygen spears through his veins and rejuvenates him. He’s almost giddy with effervescence.

For once, he knows exactly what to do.

Dean takes another deep breath and leans forward over the back of the altar, or at least as close as he can without touching the black tendrils. He splays his free hand out, the red fabric bunching up under his fingers where the necklace is nestled in his palm. 

“Crowley, I’m never going to be your bitch ever again. You can take that blade and shove it up your ass.”

Crowley’s face contorts; his pleasant bargaining mask drops into a twisted visage of rage and hatred.

Dean is barely an inch away from Josie’s corpse. The silver dust is less than a foot away. It’s now or never. If they wait any longer, Crowley’s going to figure it out.

“Sam, _now_.”

Sam blasts Crowley square in the chest. The man reels back in surprise and touches a hand to himself; it comes away bloody. He’s not very hurt, but that wasn’t the point. Sam fires again, and Crowley reels back another two steps.

Dean grabs the silver dust; in his haste, he spills half the contents on the corpse, but it doesn’t matter. It _can’t_ —they don’t have time to try this again. He chants the incantation, makes the gesture, and touches the corpse; the skin is weirdly preserved for someone who’s been dead fifty years, cold and smooth and as pale as marble. The blessing glows as it travels throughout the body; as it passes through, the flesh desiccates and crumbles like it should have years and years ago. The party dress sags as the body collapses in on itself, the blood-red hair fades and withers. This is some _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ shit right here— 

“Damn it!” Crowley yells. He barks an order to his demonic minions, one that comes as no surprise. “Kill them! Rip them limb from fucking limb!”

Chaos breaks out as the demons spring into action and rush them. Dean grabs his gun from the altar and fires at the demon nearest him. It only takes two shots, and the body crumples to the ground. Sam is dispatching demons easily with the help of Bones, and Dean hears the sound of a blade slicing through flesh as Cas whirls into their enemy’s midst. It’s bloody, but the man’s movements are flawless and mesmerizing. Almost too much so—Dean turns just in time to shoot another demon point-blank in the forehead. There will be time to gawk at Cas later.

As he kills another demon, Dean realizes that for the first time since this whole fucking mess started, he really believes that there’ll even _be_ a later.

It’s a good feeling, knowing that they’re going to survive this, that he’ll have a chance at something he should have had a long time ago: an actual life. With newfound energy, he wades back into battle.


	21. Let Me Go, Let You Go

All in all, it could’ve ended worse; they made it through with nothing more worrisome than minor injuries. Sam and Bobby are a little roughed up, Cas has a scratch on his forearm and a bump on his noggin, and Dean strained his shoulder and maybe bruised a rib or two. Nothing serious at all, not for them. Dean frowns and amends that thought; nothing serious in relation to what they’ve been dealing with lately. The cut on Cas’s arm is fairly deep and jagged and actually requires prompt medical attention—the kind of attention that Dean is more than happy to give (because _that_ doesn’t sound creepy _at all_ ) now that they have time for a breather. 

“Friggin’ hold still, alright?” Dean pulls the edges of the gash together and tightens the bandage. He doesn’t think it’s possible, but Cas’s grumpy frown actually gets deeper. “Don’t be such a baby.”

“Healing spells _are_ a thing, Dean. You know them, I know them, and even Sam knows some basic ones.”

“What can I say, I like old-school first aid.”

Cas huffs. “You’re just looking for an excuse to get your hands on me,” he says. He keeps his voice low, meant only for Dean; Dean blushes and tries to ignore the little thrill of acknowledgement that accompanies Cas’s statement.

“Maybe, maybe not. Now shut up and let me do this.” Dean bites his lip as he concentrates on something that does not usually require this much concentration.

“You two are adorable.” Sam doesn’t even bother to conceal his amusement. He and Bobby are cleaning up the altar, packing up the useful materials and setting aside others for proper disposal. You can’t be too careful with necromancy. 

“Shut it, Samantha.” But, ugh; he _knew_ this was going to happen as soon as he let his guard down. Not that he regrets it, not for a second. With a final awkward pat, he lets Cas’s arm go free. The ruined sleeve of Cas’s hoodie swings loose where Dean had to cut it. 

“Knock it off, you knuckleheads.” Bobby’s intervention is timely. He’s currently walking around the corpse laid out on the altar, muttering to himself like an old man trying to figure out where he left his reading glasses. Bobby pokes at a withered arm. It crumbles further, and Bobby jerks back. “Well, whatever you did, looks like it worked. Don’t think this corpse will be holding any sort of entity, demonic or otherwise, any time soon.”

Cas steps over to the altar. “There’s just one more step to make certain of that. Dean, where’s that scroll I gave you?”

Dean hands it over and Cas reads the spell from the parchment. Nothing noticeable happens, and Cas looks around the group, but he’d be the expert. Dean and Bobby both shrug, Sam makes a face, and Cas looks back down to the corpse.

“Well… I guess that’s it,” Cas says. “We can probably put her back in her crypt now.”

“How? The body will be destroyed if we so much as touch it,” Sam says.

“Idjits. Just wrap her back up,” Bobby grumbles.

The four of them fumble with the cloth shroud, but manage to get most of the desiccated corpse back over to the open crypt in one piece. Meg had simply busted through the plaque, and broken pieces of stone litter the floor beneath. Cas surprises Dean once again when he performs a little spell that yanks all the pieces back together.

“Neat trick, Cas.”

The man actually blushes. “Whatever she may have become, I believe that at some point in her life, Josie Sands was an innocent. Her memory doesn’t deserve to be tarnished, nor her final resting place disrespected. It’s the least I could do.”

“You’re a giant sap.”

Sam interrupts before their banter can extend into a moment. “Okay, so, what do we do about Meg’s ashes?”

“Anyone got a broom?”

“ _Dean._ ”

 

It’s not until after Sam has tamped the last bit of earth into place over Alfie’s makeshift grave and they’re halfway back to the cars that it really hits Dean: it’s over. They survived, and they even won. 

Well, _mostly_ won. The threat of Abaddon being summoned into this world has passed, at least. Crowley, however, cut his losses in the middle of the fight and poofed out to who knows where. Dean doesn’t have to know the dude well to know that Crowley's probably always going to be searching for ways to increase his power and influence. He also knows there’s no doubt that they’ll cross paths with him again, and Dean would rather it be on his own terms. He just needs to figure out how to broach the subject to Sam and get him to agree to hunting down Crowley, but Sam beats him to it.

“Dean, so, uh, I’ve been thinking?” Sam sounds hesitant, nervous even, and he’s got his ‘I have to tell you something you’re not going to want to hear’ face on.

Dean swallows. Here it comes. “Y-yeah?” 

“I've been thinking,” Sam repeats, and he sounds more sure of himself this time, but a little defensive, too. “I want to go back to school. It’s been on my mind for a while, and I’ve been looking into programs in the Midwest where I might be able to transfer some of my old credits over, so at least I wouldn’t have to start from scratch. I never thought I’d be able to go—not only that I’d get the chance, but also to be in a position to leave you, but now—” Sam’s gaze flits over to Cas, who Dean suddenly notices is hovering over his left shoulder. “Well, I wanted to wait until this whole mess got wrapped up, and as a bonus I don’t think I’d be leaving you _alone_ , if you know what I mean.”

And there it is—the news Dean has been dreading off and on ever since he first started suspecting Sam was up to something back in Canada. The threat of Sam’s eventual departure has plagued Dean over the years; usually, when he thinks Sam is working up to an announcement, it feels like the world is about to drop out from under his feet. Surely Sam leaving would show that Dean can’t hack it as the older brother, that he could never live up to Sam’s expectations (he now sees that those were just his _own_ expectations), and that Sam was sick of his shit.

That’s not the case now, Dean realizes with no small amount of wonder. He was practically still a kid himself the last time Sam left, and ill-equipped to handle what he thought was his brother’s rejection. The benefit of hindsight tells him his poor reaction was more than likely a product of the rather insular way they grew up; Mom herself had been surprisingly supportive of Sam going to school, so Dean had pretended to be okay with it for her sake. But he’d been secretly delighted when Sam dropped out after his sophomore year to go back on the road with them.

They’ve reached the cars, and Dean rests his hand on Baby’s trunk; the cold metal has collected dew, but he scarcely notices.

Things hadn’t really been the same once Sam had come back, of course, because after two years on his own, Sam had become more independent, more hardheaded, but also more his own person. The tension between them after Mom died… that had all been pretty awful, to put it mildly. And to be honest, it was mostly Dean’s own fault. He’d tried so hard to step into Mom’s shoes, tried _too_ hard, and it kinda sorta fucked up their supposed partnership-as-equals because he’d never learned to treat Sam as an equal. Cas, though—he and Cas don’t have the history that he and Sam share. And god knows he’s been hoping to partner up with Cas for a while now. That lack of shared history between them, though, could be both a blessing and a curse. There’s no telling when or if it’ll all blow up in his face. It has to be worth the risk, though.

Dean leans back against the Impala, lets the car’s weight lend him support. He scoffs in defeat when he realizes he’s already come to terms with Sam’s decision, but Sam misinterprets it.

“Look, it’s not like I’d be going as far away. There are good schools and programs in Minnesota, so I’ll be relatively close to Bobby’s place, and you already stop in there often enough, we can still see each other plenty. Plus, I think it’ll be good for Bones to have a more permanent home for a while. And I mean, I guess you guys haven’t sorted any of your own shit out, but I’m _really_ pretty sure that Cas wouldn’t mind going on the road with you—”

“Sam, oh my _god_ , shut up,” Dean says with a laugh. Sam takes a deep breath. “You gotta do what you gotta do, man, okay? So, yeah, I’m cool with that. Really,” he adds when Sam continues to look doubtful. “And with Bones out of the picture, maybe I’ll get a cat.” 

“You’re allergic,” Sam says absently, still looking fairly stunned by Dean’s easy acquiescence.

Dean turns to Cas and clears his throat. “Um, so, Cas, whaddaya say? I know we never really, um, discussed anything, but do you wanna go after Crowley with me?” 

Somehow, this is way more nerve-wracking than a hunting partnership proposal should be—but that’s not really what this is, and as long as he’s being honest with himself, he might as well admit it. He wants Cas in his life, and not just as a hunting partner. His heart thuds heavily as he waits for an answer; he should probably work up the nerve to actually _say_ what he means, instead of hoping that Cas correctly interprets the significant look he’s trying to send.

Cas, bless him, seems to get the picture; his face crinkles up into a wide and completely ridiculous smile. It looks out of place with that bruise forming on his temple, but Dean forgets about the bruise when Cas’s hand slides into his own and squeezes gently, and he forgets about everything else when Cas leans in and gives him a soft, fleeting kiss. Cas’s lips are softer than they look. It’s nothing more than a quick press of lips to lips, but Dean can sense the weight and meaning behind it, the promise of the future extending between them. Dean feels his face flush and his heart races—he knows he’s smiling like the world’s biggest dork, but everything is awesome right now, and if anyone has a problem with it, they can go fuck off.

“Yes, Dean, I’d like that very much.” Cas still has a gigantic grin pinned to his face. Suddenly shy, Dean can’t keep eye contact. He settles for squeezing Cas’s hand, still clasped in his own.

Bobby rolls his eyes. “Great, now that that’s all settled, can we get the hell outta here before I lose my lunch?”

Dean laughs, giddy and nearly breathless in his relief at the easy resolution of his worries. “Sure thing, Bobby. Sure thing. Cas, you riding with me?”

“If it means I finally get to sit in front, then yes,” Cas says.

“It’s called shotgun, and yeah, I ‘spose that’s alright. Sam, you’re with Bobby. What do you guys say we find some dinner?”

“We passed a place ‘bout an hour south of Galena, looked like our kinda joint. Called the Roadhouse,” Bobby says.

“Sounds perfect.” The door squeaks when Dean tugs it open. He owes Baby some TLC, and now—finally—he has the time for it. Cas drops into the passenger seat, and while it’ll take some getting used to, this business of having things for himself, it feels good. It feels right.

And as Baby crawls back up along the bumpy road, putting the convent and the whole fucking mess in her taillights, it’s entirely possible that Dean and Cas are still holding hands.

 

** Epilogue **

**Rob** : Well, that’s not exactly how I pictured the campaign ending.

**Jensen** : Blame Mish. His character was flirting with mine since the get-go. And that’s not your d20, jerk. See? Matching set. Hand it over.

**Misha** : Hey, now, that is unfair. I wasn’t even invited to the first couple sessions.

**Jared** : Yeah, because we knew you’d fuck everything up. I mean, really, planeshifting us all out of combat when we almost had her?

**Misha** : First of all, we didn’t ‘almost have her,’ we were one measly round away from a TPK. Second, don’t make me your scapegoat. I’m not the one whose character thought it’d be a good idea to bond with a cursed artifact and then nearly kill his entire party before dying himself. If it hadn’t been for Cas doing Miracle, Dean would have stayed dead, and then who would Cas seduce at the tavern?

**Rob** : Guys, guys. That’s enough. We should talk about the next campaign—

**Jensen** : At least Dean was doing _something_.

**Jared** : Speaking of Dean doing things, can we not do that split storyline any more? It’s incredibly boring watching Jensen hem and haw over what underwear Dean’s going to wear that day while he’s off by himself.

**Jensen** : I thought you wanted me to get more in-character?

**Jared** : I retract that statement.

**Misha** : Really? I kind of liked it. Gave me some time to tweet about his incredibly strange choices, like multiclassing into _Paladin_.

**Jensen** : Oh, that’s it. You wanna talk about bad choices, how about Cas getting stuck on the Celestial plane for weeks because he can’t manage a damn—

**Rob** : Okay, I’m throwing you all out now. Don’t come back next week.

**Author's Note:**

> So... I started this story almost a year ago, and had most of it plotted out by last January, which means I'd decided Mary was the parent who had lived and raised them as hunters long before the S11 finale. Originally, it didn't mean much--it was just a way to change things up. I thought it would be interesting to explore how she could have raised the boys and how they might still end up in the life, but it was never meant to be an in-depth character study, because as a character, Mary hadn't been in that many episodes... aaaand then she was brought back in the show, and I got super paranoid I'd get her all wrong, and I'd get hate mail, mean comments, etc. (I'm still a little worried about it tbh.) You have no idea how glad I am that Dean takes after her, because basically my whole approach to Mary's character was a slightly wiser and slightly less messed up version of Dean >_>
> 
> Anyway... thanks for reading, I hope it wasn't terrible :)
> 
> You can find me on tumblr as [veryamooseing](http://veryamooseing.tumblr.com) where I mostly reblog other people's destiel posts, meta, and post lots of Season 12 spoilers in gif form <3


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